With their flight now complete, the four astronauts have set NASA up for a moon landing by another crew in just two years and a full-blown moon base within the decade.
After blazing new records near the moon, Artemis II’s astronauts completed humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century with a Pacific splashdown on Friday, a dramatic grand finale to a mission that revealed not only swaths of the lunar far side never seen before by human eyes but also a total solar eclipse and a parade of planets, most notably our own shimmering Earth.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
With their flight now complete, the four astronauts have set NASA up for a moon landing by another crew in just two years and a full-blown moon base within the decade.
The triumphant moon-farers — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen — emerged from their bobbing capsule into the sunlight off the coast of San Diego.
Military helicopters lifted the astronauts one by one from an inflatable raft attached to the capsule, transporting them onboard for the brief journey to the Navy's waiting recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha, in a spectacle reminiscent of NASA's Apollo moonshots of the past.
“These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now, and I can’t imagine a better crew,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said from the recovery ship.
NASA’s Mission Control erupted in celebration, with hundreds pouring in from the back support rooms. “We did it,” NASA’s Lori Glaze rejoiced at a news conference. “Welcome to our moonshot.”
Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, made the entire plunge on autopilot as the lunar cruiser hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound—a blistering blur not seen since the 1960s and 1970s Apollo.
A historic and diverse multinational crew
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the capsule became engulfed in red-hot plasma during peak heating and entered a planned communication blackout. All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that had to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry.
The families of the astronauts gathered in Mission Control's viewing room to watch the drama unfold about 3,200 kilometres away. They cheered as the capsule emerged from its six-minute blackout and again during splashdown.
Prior to this splashdown, Apollo 17 in 1972 was the last time NASA and the Defence Department collaborated on a lunar crew's reentry. Before slowing to a splashdown at 30 kph, Artemis II screamed back at 36,174 feet (11,026 meters) per second, or 39,693 kph, barely short of the record.
Until Artemis II, NASA’s fresh-from-the-moon homecomings starred only white male pilots. Intent on reflecting changes in society, NASA chose a diverse, multinational crew for its lunar comeback.
Koch became the first woman to fly to the moon; Glover, the first Black astronaut; and Hansen, the first non-US citizen, bursting Canada with pride. They laughed, cried and hugged all the way there and back, striving to take the entire world along with them.
Artemis II’s record flyby and views of the moon
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn’t land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record and marked the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when the crew reached 406,771 kilometres.
Then in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
During Monday’s record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the moon’s far side never seen before by the human eye along with a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthrise, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
Born a decade after Apollo, Isaacman greeted the astronauts with hugs as they headed from the helicopters to the ship’s medical bay for routine checks. They walked by themselves, refusing the wheelchairs offered them.
“We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon, bringing them back safely and to set up for a series more,” Isaacman said. “This is just the beginning.”