Having travelling a record-breaking 406,771 km (252,756 miles) from Earth and circling around the moon, the astronauts on board Artemis II are on their way home having flown further than any human being has done before and seen “sights that no human has ever seen” before.
Nasa’s ‘Journey to the Moon’ lifted off with four astronauts from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1 and reached the lunar sphere of influence—when the Moon’s gravity exerts more force on the Orion spacecraft than the Earth’s gravity—on April 5, before flying around the far side of the Moon on April 6.
The crew was made up of three Nasa astronauts – Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch – along with Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. At their closest, the crew members flew within 4,067 miles of the moon’s surface.
The astronauts viewed areas on the far side of the moon which aren’t visible from Earth – the never-before-seen parts of the moon’s surface which were not seen by the Apollo astronauts in 1969 because of the paths and timing of their flights. The crew were tasked with observing and documenting the lunar surface adding a human perspective to features of the Moon primarily previously captured through photographs taken by robots.
Artemis II pilot Victor Glover told the NASA crew on the ground this morning that what the four astronauts were seeing was “truly hard to describe”.
“I know this observation won’t be of any scientific value but I’m really glad we launched on April 1st, because humans have probably not evolved to see what we are seeing,” he tells them.
Commander Reid Wiseman said: “It’s just indescribable. No matter how long we look at this, our brains are not processing this image in front of us. It is absolutely spectacular, surreal… there’s no adjectives, I’m going to need to invent some new ones, there’s absolutely no words to describe what we are looking at out this window.”
In a live chat with the White House after Artemis II had looped around the far side of the moon, President Donald Trump congratulated the crew and said the mission has made history.
As expected, when Artemis II astronauts travelled behind the Moon, they lost contact with Earth for about 40 minutes as spacecraft signals were blocked.
When contact was restored, astronaut Christina Koch said: “It is so great to hear from Earth again”, while pilot Victor Glover said: “I said a little prayer, but then I had to keep rolling”, adding: “I was actually recording scientific observations of the far side of the Moon.”
The US President said the astronauts aboard Artemis II were them inspirations ‘for the entire world.’
In an exchange with mission control the astronauts were praised for the stunning imagery captured: “We got a sneak peek at your imagery. It is absolutely stunning, we are all completely in awe of the work you did today,” they told astronauts.
“Thank you so much for bringing us on this journey with you. We hope you have sweet dreams of Moon joy.”
The crew replied: “We’re glad they’re appreciated. We certainly appreciate it up here.”
Nasa’s head of science Dr Nicola Fox told BBC’s Radio 4 that the Artemis II crew saw several “new, small craters” while observing the far side of the Moon.
The craters appeared as “bright patches” and were visible to the naked eyes of the crew as a series of colours, including shades of brown and blue, she said.
Astronaut Christina Koch said that the lunar craters shone brightly on the lunar surface: “What it really looks like is like a lampshade with tiny pinprick holes and the light shining through,” she said. “They are so bright compared to the rest of the Moon.”
The astronauts shared an emotional moment as they proposed to name a crater in honor of the wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman who died in May 2020 after a five-year battle with cancer.
“It’s a bright spot on the Moon. And we would like to call it Carroll,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said in a live broadcast before the four astronauts joined in a floating embrace, with some wiping away tears.
A NASA spokesperson in Houston said the names proposed by the Artemis crew would be passed along to the International Astronomical Union.
Dr Meganne Christian, a reserve astronaut with the European Space Agency told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the moon mission was “a test flight, preparing us for the future of exploration, preparing us for future landing sites… We are not just going to the moon, we are going there to stay.”
You can watch the homeward journey live here https://x.com/nasa or https://www.bbc.com/news/live/clyr8k06jv7t#player