Artemis II astronauts describe 'unbelievable' lunar eclipse ahead of re-entry, splashdown

NASA’s Artemis II mission has sparked awe far beyond the space community, drawing Americans of all ages into a rare shared experience of wonder as four astronauts made humanity’s first voyage around the moon in more than 50 years.

From rocket-launch watch parties and classroom lessons to crowded planetariums and a rush of Artemis-themed merchandise, the 10-day mission has stirred fascination with the crew’s journey to the far side of the moon and back.

The flight is a major test run for NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade, and it is set to end Friday with a Pacific splashdown off the California coast.

Public attention is expected to follow the return almost as closely as the April 1 launch, when Orion lifted off from Cape Canaveral atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket.

“Everyone can be excited about humans extending their capabilities, learning new things, and doing so in a positive, peaceful way,” said Gaza Gyuk, senior astronomer at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, where he said hundreds of visitors gathered to watch the launch and learn more about the mission.

That excitement has shown up in polling as well. A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted during the mission found that 69% of Americans said space exploration excites them, while about 80% said they viewed NASA favorably. The same poll found that 69% said it was important to send astronauts back to the moon.

For many Americans, Artemis has offered a moment of inspiration amid an often grim and fractured news cycle, serving both as an escape and as a reminder of scientific ambition and human possibility.

In Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, astronomy enthusiast Hector Ybe hosted an Artemis launch party for about 225 people, including many families with children.

“For two hours, everybody forgot what was happening outside in the world, everybody was talking about space,” he said, adding that attendees came from a range of ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds.

The sense of shared wonder has also been fueled by images returned from deep space. Gyuk pointed to photographs of Earth taken by the Artemis crew that show oceans and continents without borders, emphasizing humanity’s common home.

“That helps people sort of realize that we’re all in this together,” he said.

Teachers across the country have folded the mission into classroom activities. At STEM Lab public school in Northglenn, Colorado, engineering teacher Erin Brabant decorated a hallway with posters of the SLS rocket, astronauts and a mission timeline, while assigning students to design their own lunar landers.

“When we talk about Artemis, it’s like every kid stops what they’re doing,” Brabant said. “Their little side conversations stop, and they have questions."

Brabant said the makeup of the Artemis II crew has also helped students see themselves in the mission. Pilot Victor Glover is the first Black astronaut assigned to a lunar voyage, and mission specialist Christina Koch is the first woman ever sent to the moon.

Last week in Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, 15 Girl Scouts between the ages of 5 and 11 watched the launch live during a troop meeting.

Their attention was especially drawn to Koch, a former Girl Scout, as they worked on Women’s History Month presentations, troop leader Heather Willard said.

“All of the girls were mesmerized,” Willard said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

As NASA’s Artemis II crew heads back to Earth from the moon, the astronauts have marked the mission with a deeply personal tribute, asking to name two lunar craters — one for their Orion capsule, Integrity, and another for Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.

The request came earlier this week during the crew’s lunar flyby, when Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian to the moon, asked mission controllers for permission to use the names. Wiseman, who said he was too emotional to make the request himself, later described the moment as one of the defining experiences of the mission.

“Just for me personally, that was kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission for me,” Wiseman said from space Wednesday night in a rare space-to-Earth news conference with the media.

Carroll Wiseman, a neonatal nurse, died of cancer in 2020.

The gesture echoed an earlier moment from the Apollo era. During Apollo 8’s historic 1968 mission around the moon, astronaut Jim Lovell named a lunar peak Mount Marilyn after his wife. That mission was humanity’s first journey to the moon, and Marilyn Lovell was waiting for him back in Houston.

Artemis II’s four-person crew — three Americans and one Canadian — are the first astronauts to travel to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Their crater-naming request stunned scientists and flight controllers on the ground.

“It was definitely a very emotional moment. I don’t think most of us knew it was coming,” NASA lunar scientist Ryan Watkins told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Johnson Space Center in Houston. “There was not a single dry eye.”

Before launch, Mission Control lead scientist Kelsey Young quietly worked with the Artemis II crew to identify two bright, relatively young craters. Once the astronauts neared the moon, they were able to spot them using zoom lenses and with the naked eye.

Wiseman said the idea originated with his crewmates while the team was in quarantine just days before liftoff.

“Absolutely, I would love that, I think that’s just the best. And I said, ‘But I can’t give the speech, I can’t give the talk,’” he recalled during a crew news conference.

The proposed Carroll Crater sits near the moon’s left limb, along the boundary between the near side and far side, and can occasionally be seen from Earth. According to Watkins, it is about 3 miles, or 5 kilometers, across and relatively shallow. Integrity crater is slightly larger and lies fully on the far side of the moon.

The naming request came shortly after the crew surpassed Apollo 13’s long-standing distance record for human spaceflight. All four astronauts cried and embraced after the moment.

“We lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,” Hansen radioed, his voice breaking. “It’s a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carroll.”

Mission Control was silent for nearly a minute before answering.

“Integrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear.”

For NASA officials, the exchange stood apart from the more stoic tone often associated with the Apollo moon missions, whose all-male test pilot crews were generally less outwardly emotional.

“This is no fault of Apollo,” Watkins said. “I think we’re seeing just a more human aspect.”

After returning to Earth later this week, the Artemis II crew is expected to formally submit the proposed names to the International Astronomical Union, which oversees official naming of planetary features.

It took nearly 50 years for the IAU to formally approve Mount Marilyn, which it did in 2017.

The union’s Ramasamy Venugopal said a decision on Carroll and Integrity could come in about a month, which he described as typical “for straightforward requests.”

The IAU has already approved 81 astronaut-given lunar feature names, including Apollo 16’s Baby Ray and Gator, as well as Apollo 17’s Lara, named for the lead female character in the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago.”

Not every Apollo nickname made it into the official record. Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan informally called a split boulder “Tracy’s Rock” after his daughter in 1972, while Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad dubbed his 1969 landing area “Pete’s Parking Lot.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NASA’s Artemis II crew will begin Flight Day 9 of 10 on a lighter public schedule Thursday, with the astronauts waking up at 11:35 a.m. ET ahead of a pair of afternoon public events and a key overnight engine burn.

A mission status briefing from NASA Johnson Space Center is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET, followed by a NASA Public Affairs Office event at 7:35 p.m. ET.

Later in the evening, Orion is set to conduct its RTC-2 burn at 10:53 p.m. ET, an important maneuver on the trip back to Earth.

The crew’s sleep period is scheduled to begin at 3:05 a.m. ET Friday.

Artemis II Flight Day 9 schedule (ET):

11:35 a.m. ET – Crew wake-up / Flight Day 9 begins

3:30 p.m. ET – Mission status briefing

7:35 p.m. ET – NASA Public Affairs Office event

10:53 p.m. ET – RTC-2 burn

3:05 a.m. ET Friday – Crew sleep begins

The Artemis II crew is not getting sick of each other in cramped quarters, in fact, Mission Specialist Christina Koch is going to miss the bonding time.

"We have loved living in Orion, and in fact, we've all said that sometimes you can forget where you really are because we're in this small, the small space that just gives us everything we need," Koch told reporters in a rare space-to-Earth news conference late Wednesday night.

Koch noted the capsule seems "bigger in microgravity," but she does not mind bumping into each other.

"We are bumping into each other 100% of the time," she said. "A phrase that you often hear in the cabin is, 'Don't move your foot; I'm just going to reach for something right under it.' Or, you know, 'Can I get there?' And my goal is to get over there."

Koch calls it not only "fun" but she is going to miss the "comraderie"

"Everything we do in here is a four person activity, but it's also really fun," she said.

"I will miss this camaraderie," she continued. "I will miss being this close with this many people and having a common purpose, a common mission, getting to work on it hard and hard every day across hundreds of thousands of miles with the team on the ground.

"This sense of teamwork is something that you don't usually get like as an adult. I mean, we are close like brothers and sisters, and that is a privilege we will never have again. I have to say, I don't think there's anything I would say I won't miss, or that I'm just ready to be over, because this whole thing is a package.

"We can't explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient, unless we're making a few sacrifices, unless we're taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it."

Canadian Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen said Artemis II has not changed his worldview so much as confirmed it, telling reporters that the mission reinforced his belief in both Earth’s fragility and humanity’s responsibility to work together.

Speaking during Wednesday night’s rare space-to-Earth news conference, Hansen said the crew had witnessed extraordinary scenes during the flight, including sights that went beyond what he had imagined before launch.

“We have seen just some extraordinary things, things that I thought we might see; they looked similar to what I thought they might look like; and other things that I just had never even imagined,” Hansen said. “And those were different perspectives that we saw these things from. 

"But, I have to say, it hasn't changed my perspective or the perspective that I launched with.”

Hansen said that perspective began with an appreciation for Earth’s vulnerability in space and has only been strengthened by the mission.

“The perspective I launched with was that we live on a fragile planet, in the vacuum and the void of space,” Hansen said. “We know this from science. We're very fortunate to live on planet Earth.”

He added that the experience also reaffirmed a broader belief about human purpose.

“And the other perspective that I've sort of learned from others through life is that, you know, our purpose on the planet as humans is to find joy, to find the joy and lifting each other up by creating solutions together instead of destroying,” Hansen said. “And when you see it from out here, it doesn't change it. 

"It just absolutely reaffirms that. It's almost like seeing living proof of it."

Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman admits he is prone to "embellishment" on his storytelling, but describing the "unbelievable sight" views of the lunar eclipse did not require stretching the "truth."

"When we watched that Earth eclipse behind the moon, wow," Wiseman told reporters in a rare space-to-Earth news conference late Wednesday night. "I'm actually getting chills right now just thinking about it. My palms are sweating.

"But it is amazing to watch your home planet disappear behind the moon. You could see the atmosphere. You could actually see the terrain in the moon projected across the Earth, as the Earth was eclipsing behind the moon.

"It was just an unbelievable sight. And then it was gone. It was out of sight."

After taking a few minutes to reflect together and share maple cookies brought by crewmate Jeremy Hansen, the four astronauts returned to work. The eclipse coincided with some of the mission’s most important lunar observations for the geology team, underscoring the balance between awe and scientific focus.

"The four of us took a moment," Wiseman said, "to really reflect on where we were.

"And then it was right back into the science. And it is a surreal feeling. But we had a lot of work to do too, and I think that kept our focus. "

The Artemis II mission might have broken records and made all-time human achievement for being the furthest travel away from Earth, but it is merely a floor and not a ceiling, according to mission specialist Christina Koch.

"Part of our ethos as a crew and our values from the very beginning were that this is a relay race," said Koch, the first woman to the moon, who already holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days) and was part of the first all-female spacewalk.

"In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize physically that we plan to hand them to the next crew. And every single thing that we do is with them in mind."

Speaking during the Orion news conference with media on Earth late Wednesday night, Koch said she is helping test everything from Orion’s manual piloting and procedures to evaluating food, provisions and other human-system details inside the spacecraft.

"Oftentimes it's actually easier in human spaceflight, especially on a first mission, to accept some of the things that aren't working quite right or the operational workarounds, and we have actually been diligent to try to fix everything," she continued. "And we're always thinking from the perspective is: What is the next crew going to think about this? How will this help them to succeed?"

It is ultimately about furthering the space program, getting back on the moon as soon as 2028, and potentially using the moon to slingshot to Mars.

"So both in the vehicle and all in the last three years, we've really just worked to make sure that they are set up for success, and that's the all of the teams, not just the crew, but the flight control teams, the mission, engineering rooms, the launch teams, everyone," she concluded.

"Hopefully we've done our best to bring folks together and to make sure that we can be the best that can be. Obviously, just testing, putting humans in this vehicle is the easy thing to see, and we hope that we've capitalized on that and made it as much as it can be for our time here."

Artemis II pilot Victor Glover said there was no amount of training that could have prepared the crew for the never-seen-before sights aboard the Orion capsule.

"We trained to view the eclipse from the far side of the moon, or after going beyond the far side of the moon," he told the media in the rare Earth-to-space news conference with the media late Wednesday night.

"We saw great simulations made by our lunar science team, but when that actually happened, it just blew us all away.

"I mean, you heard the reaction in real time."

There was slight "disappointment" in the lack of light, due to the delayed launch date, but that faded into darkness, too, he said.

"I don't want to say unhappy about," the later launch, he said, "but launching on April 1 meant the far side wasn't as illuminated as we were hoping.

"And so, you know, that thing seemed to be a consolation, and it was one of the greatest gifts of that part of the mission."

The San Diego-based USS John P. Murtha will recover NASA’s four Artemis II astronauts when their Orion capsule splashes down in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego on Friday at 8:07 p.m. ET, according to the U.S. Navy.

Commanding Officer Capt. Erik Kenny said the crew is "honored" to support NASA and the Artemis II mission.

The amphibious transport dock ship, LPD 26, has been designated as the recovery vessel for the mission’s return.

The 684-foot John P. Murtha is well suited for the job because it has a well deck, helicopter pad, onboard medical facilities and communications systems needed for astronaut and spacecraft recovery.

For the recovery operation, MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23 will track Orion during reentry and help transport the astronauts after splashdown. Navy divers from Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 1 will recover the capsule from the ocean and move it into the ship’s well deck, while a dive medical team will help assess the crew after they exit the spacecraft.

The ship has also been conducting mission-specific preparation.

The Murtha has been underway in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations performing just-in-time training in support of the Artemis II recovery mission. It departed Naval Base San Diego on Monday to travel to 50 to 60 miles offshore where Orion will touch down with the use of 11 parachutes.

"I'll breathe easier when we get through reentry and everybody’s under chutes and in the water," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at Tuesday's news conference.