Artemis II returns

NASA’s Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 8:07 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 10, ending the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years. (nasa.gov) Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen launched from Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 1 aboard Orion, riding NASA’s Space Launch System rocket on a planned 10-day test flight. (nasa.gov) NASA said the spacecraft flew around the Moon and back, and the mission page lists a duration of 9 days, 1 hour, and 32 minutes from launch to splashdown. During the flight, Orion reached 252,756 miles from Earth at its farthest point. (nasa.gov; nasa.gov) A lunar flyby is a loop around the Moon without landing, used here to test the spacecraft, life-support systems, and crew operations in deep space before later Artemis missions attempt a landing. NASA describes Artemis II as the first crewed flight of its human deep-space system and a step toward future Moon landings. (nasa.gov) The mission also pushed humans beyond Earth’s magnetic shield, which acts like a protective umbrella against much of space radiation. NASA said that exposure let researchers collect astronaut health data in conditions not available in low Earth orbit. (nasa.gov) NASA’s Artemis II science plan included personal radiation dosimeters for the crew, along with studies of cardiovascular performance, cognition, behavior, stress hormones, and other measures of how the body responds during deep-space travel. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also provided round-the-clock space weather forecasting during the mission. (nasa.gov) The flight also produced the first official crew photos from a human lunar flyby since Apollo. NASA released images from the April 6 pass showing the Moon’s far side, a total solar eclipse seen from space, and a faint crescent Earth near the lunar horizon before Orion went behind the Moon and lost contact for about 40 minutes. (nasa.gov; nasa.gov) NASA said the crew set a new distance record for human spaceflight on April 6 when Orion reached 248,655 miles from Earth, passing the Apollo 13 mark from 1970. The agency called Artemis II the first time astronauts had traveled to the Moon in more than half a century. (nasa.gov; nasa.gov) With Orion back on Earth, NASA has moved from proving the capsule could fly uncrewed on Artemis I to showing it can carry people through a lunar mission and home again. The agency says Artemis II is the test flight meant to clear the way for the program’s next Moon missions. (nasa.gov; nasa.gov)