Astronauts Heading Back to Earth After Rendezvous Around The Moon

A view of Earth from the Orion capsule after it reached its farthest distance from the planet on 

Monday.Credit...NASA, via Reuters

By Kenneth ChangKatrina Miller and Thomas Fuller

Kenneth Chang reported from Johnson Space Center in Houston.

New York Times

On the sixth day, 248,655 miles from Earth, four people ventured farther from home than any human being who has ever lived.

Embraced by the moon’s gravitational pull, four astronauts accelerated Monday afternoon on a path to swing around the lunar far side, five days after launching on the Artemis II mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“Today, for all humanity, you’re pushing beyond that frontier,” said Jenni Gibbons, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut who was the main point of contact for the crew at mission control in Houston.

In response, Jeremy Hansen, a fellow Canadian who is a member of the Artemis II crew, hailed the space pioneers who had preceded them. 

“We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,” he said.

A few hours later, Mr. Hansen, along with Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of NASA, became the first humans in more than half a century to slip behind the moon.

ImageA grainy image of a spacecraft and a partial disc of Earth in the distance.

At 6:44 p.m. Eastern time, video transmission from Artemis II blinked out, and the astronauts were cut off from the world’s other eight billion people. As the spaceship they named Integrity passed over the far side of the moon, they reached their greatest distance from Earth — more than a quarter-million miles — and their closest proximity to the moon at a bit over 4,000 miles.

After 40 minutes of silence, the astronauts reconnected with humanity. From their windows, they watched as a thin crescent of sunlit Earth reappeared. 

“It is so great to hear from Earth again,” Ms. Koch said. Below them, facing the moon were Asia, Africa, Australia and the western Pacific.

Ms. Koch described the beginning of a new era in which people would not only return to the moon but also build an enduring presence there.

“But ultimately, we will always choose Earth,” she said. “We will always choose each other.”

The astronauts’ Monday began with an unexpected voice — that of Jim Lovell, the pilot of Apollo 8, which orbited the moon in 1968, and the commander of Apollo 13, which set the previous record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth while making an emergency return.

“Welcome to my old neighborhood!” Mr. Lovell said in a message recorded before he died in August.

“It’s a historic day, and I know how busy you’ll be,” Mr. Lovell said. “But don’t forget to enjoy the view.”

The astronauts did that.

They also paused after passing the Apollo 13 distance record for the most emotional moment of the day. Mr. Hansen voiced the astronauts’ request to name two craters on the moon. 

One would be Integrity, after their spacecraft.

The other would be to honor Mr. Wiseman’s wife, Carroll, who died in 2020 from cancer. “It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll,” Mr. Hansen said, his voice cracking.

Astronauts embrace inside a spacecraft.

Astronauts embracing on Monday after naming a lunar crater “Carroll” in honor of the late wife of Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II commander.Credit...NASA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The astronauts embraced, and mission control observed a moment of silence as Mr. Wiseman’s two daughters looked on from the visitor gallery.

The astronauts then prepared for the main event of their trip: hours of detailed observations of the lunar surface.

A new photograph of the moon captured from Integrity shows a full view of the Orientale Basin, a dark, ringed 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the near and far sides of the moon. Human eyes had never before seen all of this feature. 

“Orientale just looks so dynamic right now,” Mr. Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, said. “It’s very three dimensional.”

Ms. Koch observed small craters formed recently by meteorites slamming into the moon. These impacts kicked up the lighter-colored soil beneath 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.”

There was one more cosmic treat for the astronauts: a solar eclipse as the moon passed in front of the sun. The astronauts found it difficult to describe the sight when the moon was illuminated just from Earthshine — light reflected from our planet. 

“You can actually see a majority of the moon,” Mr. Glover said. “It is the strangest-looking thing that you can see so much on the surface.”

A view of the moon.

A new angle of the moon captured from Integrity shows a full view of the Orientale Basin, the dark, ringed 600-mile-wide crater that can be only partly seen from Earth.Credit...NASA, via Associated Press

The astronauts also counted five flashes of small meteors slamming into the lunar surface, delighting lunar scientists in mission control in Houston.

In the dark background behind the sun, the astronauts also saw a reddish Mars and a Saturn with hints of orange.

When the sun emerged from behind the moon, the long day of science ended.

Then President Trump called. Among Mr. Trump’s questions: what was like when the astronauts were out of contact with the world.

Mr. Glover said they were busy continuing their observations, but added, “I must say, it was actually quite nice.” 

 

President Trump said he would invite them to the Oval Office and ask for their autographs, noting that he rarely asks anyone for that.

On the seventh day, the astronauts will mostly rest.

A woman points at a large screen showing a map of the moon in a large room with desks and computers. Other people are looking at the large map.

In the Science Evaluation Room at Johnson Space Center during the Artemis II lunar flyby.Credit...Cassandra Klos for The New York Times

On Thursday afternoon, Integrity will leave the moon’s embrace, and Earth will again exert a stronger gravitational pull on the spacecraft.

The Artemis II astronauts will also chat with their colleagues on the International Space Station and recap their flyby observations with the science team at the Johnson Space Center.

In the evening, the spacecraft may make a slight course correction burn to make sure they are on target for splashing down back on Earth on Friday.

“I can’t believe it’s taken us so long to get back,” Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, said Monday night in Houston. “But here we are, and we’re never giving it up again. It’s just the start of a great journey.”