Artemis II returns from a historic trip around the moon

The furthest journey Human history concluded Friday evening when NASA’s Artemis 2 astronauts returned to Earth after a trip around the moon. The crew’s Orion space capsule, named Integrity, touched down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego shortly after 5 p.m. PT, marking the end of a 10-day, more than 695,000-mile journey out to the far side of the moon and back.

The four-person Artemis II crew — Commander Reed Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen — traveled further from Earth than ever before, reaching 252,756 miles from our home planet.

“More importantly, we are choosing this moment to challenge this generation and the next generation to make sure this record does not last long,” Canadian astronaut Hansen said as the crew surpassed the previous record of 248,655 miles during Apollo 13.

Integrity began its fiery descent when the spacecraft slammed into Earth’s atmosphere at about 24,000 mph, entering a communications blackout and slowed by friction as its heat shield reached temperatures of about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The plan was for the capsule to deploy two parachutes at an altitude of about 22,000 feet, slowing it to about 200 mph, and then deploy the pilot’s chutes to retract the three main parachutes at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. This would slow the spacecraft to about 20 miles per hour before falling into the ocean.

During their mission, the Artemis 2 crew saw things no human had ever seen before. The astronauts flew higher above the lunar surface than the Apollo missions, and were the first to see the entire disk of the far side of the moon. They also witnessed a solar eclipse from the vicinity of the moon, as the sun slid behind the moon’s disk and illuminated it from behind.

“Humans may not have evolved to see what we see,” NASA astronaut Glover said during the eclipse. He and the rest of the crew described a halo of light surrounding the Moon while one side of the Moon’s surface was bathed in Earth’s rays. Venus, Mars and Saturn shone among the stars. “It’s really hard to describe. It’s amazing.”

Artemis II began on April 1 when the crew blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful vehicle ever to carry humans. After performing multiple engine burns while raising altitude and testing the spacecraft’s manual controls, the crew initiated an engine run known as translunar injection on the second day of the mission, sending them on a course to the Moon.

Over the next three days, the crew tested the Orion spacecraft’s systems, practiced donning spacesuits, performed additional course correction burns, manually flew the Orion capsule again, and prepared for a flyby around the far side of the Moon. They also had trouble venting wastewater from the Orion capsule’s toilet into space.

“We definitely have to fix some plumbing,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said during a conversation with the crew.

At 12:41 a.m. ET on April 6, Artemis II entered the lunar sphere of influence, where the Moon’s gravity overcomes Earth’s gravity. On that day, the crew made its closest approach to the Moon, flying about 4,000 miles above the lunar surface. During the flyby, the crew communicated with a team of scientists on Earth, before and after a communications blackout for about 40 minutes on the far side, to describe geological features such as craters and canyons.

Immediately after breaking the distance record, the crew proposed names for two small, unnamed craters on the moon. The first they called “Integrity,” after their spacecraft, and the second they called “Carol,” in honor of Commander Reed Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.