Four astronauts returning to Earth from the dark side of the Moon as part of the , mission spoke of their emotions as they prepare to re-enter the atmosphere in a “fireball”, during their first press conference since .
The Artemis II crew, traveling in the Orion capsule since its launch in Florida last week, is expected to dock off Southern California on Friday night after arriving earlier in the week.
The astronauts followed a trajectory that took them past the dark side of the Moon, recording the longest distance ever traveled by humans from Earth.
On their return, they will reach speeds of up to 38,365 km/h as they enter Earth’s atmosphere, a high-risk phase that will test the strength of Orion’s heat shield as it experiences intense friction.
“I’ve been thinking about re-entry as early as April 3, 2023, when we were assigned this mission,” mission pilot Victor Glover said.
“There are so many images, so many stories and I still haven’t had time to realize what we’ve been through. We still have two days ahead of us and the experience of traveling through a “ball of fire” is something shocking.”
Glover, along with NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are the first team in a series of billion-dollar missions under the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon by 2028 — before China — and establish a permanent American presence, with future missions also aimed at on Mars.
Koch described the program as a “relay race,” telling reporters that “we even have batons to symbolize it.”
“We intend to hand them over to the next crew and,” he added.
What’s in the next mission?
The next mission, Artemis III, will involve testing a low-Earth orbit connection between the Orion capsule and lunar landers that will be used on future missions.
Artemis IV, scheduled for 2028, will be the program’s first manned lunar landing and the first since Apollo 17 in 1972.
On Earth, dozens of scientists studying the Moon are clustered in spaces near NASA’s Control Center in Houston, recording data and analyzing real-time and recorded crew communications.
Watering
The crew is expected to return to Earth on Friday around 8 p.m., docking off San Diego, completing a nearly 10-day mission.
On Monday, the four astronauts came within about 252,000 miles of Earth, breaking the previous record held by the Apollo 13 mission, which had stood for 56 years.
Mission Commander Reed Wiseman said each crew member had two brief communications with their family during the mission.
“Hearing your colleagues laughing and moving and talking to their people from so far away — family is very important to all of us,” he said.
In a radio message to the Control Center in Houston as they approached the Moon, Hansen suggested naming a new crater “Carroll” in honor of Wiseman’s late wife, who died of cancer in 2020.
Wiseman said the idea had been suggested by his colleagues as early as the pre-launch quarantine period.
“It was a very emotional moment for me,” he said. “I told them ‘Of course, I’d love to’… but I can’t talk about it. I can’t describe it.”
