With the crew of Artemis II set to return to Earth on Friday following its historic 10-day lunar flyby mission, the astronauts celebrated their lunar expedition and hailed the “golden age of space travel”, saying they hoped the historic mission would inspire the next generation.
Speaking from on board the Artemis II on Thursday evening, the crew fielded questions from members of Congress as they prepared for their return to Earth.
The mood of Thursday’s press conference was jubilant as politicians from both sides of the aisle congratulated the astronauts on their trip while asking questions about their experiences and its ability to inspire others.
The record-breaking nature of the mission was also on the minds of several crew members. “It is unbelievable to think that we could build an international team led by the United States of America and set our sights out on a sustained presence on the moon and onto Mars and then we can go and achieve it,” said Commander Reid Wiseman, calling the mission “incredible”. “There is nothing this nation cannot do when it has a vision.”
“We are in the golden age of space travel right now,” added Wiseman. “There’s just limitless potential here.”
Several congresspeople asked how the Artemis II trip could serve as an inspiration, especially to younger generations. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California called the expedition “unifying in so many ways”, asking the four-person crew what they hoped the public took away from it.
“I hope that we connect back to when we went to the moon the first time and we started calling big things humanity accomplished ‘moon shots’ and we take ownership of this ‘moonshot’,” said pilot Victor Glover, the first Black man to travel beyond low-Earth orbit. “There’s nothing that we can’t accomplish when we pull all of our differences together … and when we work on something big for the good of everyone.”
Artemis II crew members have already begun repacking for their re-entry to Earth following their lunar expedition. Earlier on Thursday, Nasa leaders described the precise logistics needed to get the crew home.
The return will see the Orion capsule traveling at nearly 24,000mph before making a final splashdown several miles off the coast of San Diego. The operation requires multiple teams and careful coordination to safely extract the crew from the spacecraft.
Speaking at a press conference, Nasa’s associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said: “To every engineer, every technician that’s touched this machine, tomorrow belongs to you. The crew has done their part. Now we have to do ours.”
Jeff Radigan, lead flight director of the mission, emphasized the precision required for re-entry, noting the team has “less than a degree of an angle” to hit the correct flight path. “Let’s not beat around the bush. We have to hit that angle correctly – otherwise we’re not going to have a successful re-entry,” he said.
Radigan outlined the timeline for the spacecraft’s return. The Orion crew module and service module are set to separate at 4.33pm PT (7.33pm ET, 12.33am UK time), with the service module burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. This will be followed by a crew module raise burn at 4.37pm PT, and Orion’s entry interface at 4.53pm PT, which will cause a brief blackout. Drogue parachutes are set to deploy at about 5.03pm PT, followed by main parachutes, before a final splashdown at 5.07pm PT.
He added that the splashdown will occur far off the southern California coast. “The path that we’re coming in, I don’t expect it to be visible from the folks in California … We’re working with the Department of War to recover the capsule out there and it is a fairly large exclusion zone so I would caution folks … please avoid the area,” Radigan said.
“There’s a lot of debris that comes down and we work with our recovery forces in order to ensure that it doesn’t hit them,” he added.
The USS John P Murtha is ready to assist with recovery operations, which will unfold in several stages and are expected to take between an hour and an hour and a half. “There’s a number of systems that we have to begin an orderly shutdown, and the crew then has to orient themselves and begin ‘safing’ the spacecraft so they can open the hatch, and that takes a little bit of time,” Radigan said.
He added that recovery teams must initially remain at a safe distance because of the debris. “Once we confirm that there’s no risk … which takes a matter of minutes, then they’re able to approach the spacecraft and begin the process of extracting the crew,” Radigan said.
After extraction, the crew will undergo post-mission medical evaluations before being flown to Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Back on board Thursday night, the crew members spoke directly to their children and other young people interested in space exploration.
Glover said that he and his wife look forward to “chasing and catching [the] dreams” of his four children. Speaking to the “future citizens”, Glover said: “I hope this mission is giving you something you can take and put in your pocket or in your heart or mind, that you keep with you … we want you to take this and build a vocabulary to explain the world to us.”
One of the most striking experiences, according to multiple crew members, was seeing the eclipse of the moon in person. Christina Koch, mission specialist in the Artemis II crew, said that the sight “rendered us speechless”. Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian Space Agency mission specialist, seconded Koch’s remarks, adding: “I know you saw some pictures,” referring to images captured of the moon, “But it really was something.”