Artemis II Heads Back to Earth

After traveling deeper into space than any other humans, the Artemis II astronauts pointed their moonship toward home Monday night, wrapping up a lunar cruise that revealed views of the far side never beheld by eyes until now, the AP reports. Their flyby of the moon—NASA's first return since the Apollo era—even included some celestial sightseeing besides yielding rich science. It was a significant step toward landing boot prints near the moon's south pole in just two years. A total solar eclipse greeted the three Americans and one Canadian as the moon temporarily blocked the sun from their perspective. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn nodded at them from the black void. The landing sites of Apollo 12 and 14 also were visible, poignant reminders of NASA's first age of exploration more than half a century ago.

In an especially riveting retro throwback, Artemis II shattered the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. NASA's Orion capsule reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon, 4,101 miles farther than Apollo 13. Known as a free-return lunar trajectory, this no-stopping-to-land route takes advantage of Earth and the moon's gravity, reducing the need for fuel. It's a celestial figure-eight that put the astronauts on course for home once they emerged from behind the moon Monday evening. Artemis II's lunar fly-around and intense observation period lasted seven hours, by far the highlight of the nearly 10-day test flight that will end with a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday.

Venturing as close as 4,067 miles to the gray dusty surface, the astronauts zipped through a list of more than two dozen targets, using powerful Nikon cameras as well as their iPhones to zoom in on impact craters and other intriguing lunar features. Before getting started, they requested permission to name two bright, freshly carved craters. They suggested Integrity, the name of their capsule, and Carroll, commander Reid Wiseman's wife, who died of cancer in 2020. Wiseman wept as Hansen put in the request to Mission Control, and all four astronauts embraced in tears. President Trump phoned the astronauts following the lunar flyby, calling them "modern-day pioneers."