The Orion capsule carrying the astronauts will be traveling at about 24,000 mph when it hits the top of the atmosphere during reentry. That’s fast enough to fly from New York to London in less than nine minutes.
For the final day of their mission, the Artemis II astronauts woke up at 11:35 a.m. ET to the tunes of “Run to the Water” by Live, selected by the crew, and “Free” by Zac Brown Band.
“What a great way to start the day, Houston. Courage and grit. That’ll stick with me and it should stick with all of you all day long,” commander Reid Wiseman said.
At wake-up time, they were 61,326 miles from Earth.
A day earlier, NASA shared the crew’s morning playlist on Spotify. “Each track was selected by the Moon crew, continuing a tradition that started more than 50 years ago,” NASA wrote on social media.
Read more and see the list of songs here.
“Rise,” the plush mission mascot aboard Artemis II, has served an important role as the crew’s zero-gravity indicator during the trip around the moon.
Rise also became a viral sensation, floating through videos and photos from the Artemis II crew, and carried the names submitted to NASA’s “Send Your Name with Artemis” campaign.
The adorable plush is the brainchild of 8-year-old Lucas Ye. The California second-grader made sure to include historical references in every part of the plush’s design and ensured it would meet NASA’s strict standards.
Someday, he says, he hopes to become an astronaut himself.
Read more about how Rise was designed and developed.
CBS News will have live coverage as the Artemis II mission comes to an end after nine days in space.
Astronaut Victor Glover told reporters that watching the sun disappear behind the moon in a solar eclipse was the highlight of the mission for him.
“We saw great simulations made by our lunar science team, but when that actually happened, it just blew us all away,” he said during a news conference Wednesday. “Launching on April 1 meant the far side (of the moon) wasn’t as illuminated as we were hoping. And so (the eclipse) seemed to be a consolation, and it was one of the greatest gifts of that part of the mission.”
Asked about the splashdown, Glover said he’s been thinking of that moment ever since he was assigned to the crew. He also said there will be much more to share once they’re back on Earth.
“All the good stuff is coming back with us. There (are) so many more pictures, so many more stories. And gosh, I haven’t even begun to process what we’ve been through,” he said. “Riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well. I’m going to be thinking about and talking about all of these things for the rest of my life, for sure.”
President Trump told the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission they had “inspired the entire world” in a 12-minute chat late Monday, after they looped around the moon on their record-breaking voyage.
“Today, you’ve made history and made all America really proud,” he said. “Humans have never really seen anything quite like what you’re doing in a manned spacecraft. It’s really special.”
Mr. Trump praised the astronauts for their “courage” and “genius” — and noted that their trip is a precursor to NASA’s bid to return humans to the surface of the moon for the first time in over half a century.
“America is a frontier nation, and the four brave astronauts of Artemis II … really are modern-day pioneers,” the president said, adding that the U.S. plans to “push on to Mars” next.
The crew captured stunning photos during the mission, with spectacular views from the far side of the moon and an eclipse in space.
One image from NASA showed “Earthset” — the Earth dipping behind the moon. Part of the Earth is seen in darkness, while Australia and Oceania are visible on the planet’s surface. Details of the moon appear in the photo’s foreground.
“Humanity, from the other side,” the White House said about the image.
Another stunning photo showed the moon eclipsing the sun. The eclipse was not visible from Earth, only to the crew aboard the spacecraft, and the astronauts needed to wear eclipse glasses to protect their eyes until the moon completely covered the sun.
In an emotional tribute, astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and fellow crew members Christina Koch and Victor Glover chose to name a moon crater “Carroll” after commander Reid Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020. Hansen’s crewmates could be seen wiping away tears as he shared the dedication.
“Some times of the moon’s transit around Earth we will be able to see this,” he said of the crater. “… And it’s a bright spot on the moon. And we would like to call it Carroll.”
Wiseman later said it was the most deeply profound moment of the mission.
“That was an emotional moment for me, and I just thought that was just a total treasure,” Wiseman said during a space-to-ground news conference Wednesday.
He said his crewmates proposed the memorial when they were all in medical quarantine a few days before launch.
Before launch, the science team had helped identify a few relatively fresh craters on the moon that had not been previously named. The crew proposed naming another of the craters “Integrity” after the name of their Orion spacecraft.
The crew of Artemis II set the record for the farthest distance any human has traveled from Earth just after 7 p.m. ET on Monday as their Orion spacecraft looped around the far side of the moon.
The new record — 252,756 miles from Earth — surpassed Apollo 13’s record from 1970 by more than 4,000 miles, according to NASA. The crew had exceeded Apollo 13’s record earlier in the day.
The distance record was one of two big moments for the crew on Monday night. The Orion capsule also made its closest approach to the moon when it flew 4,067 miles above the surface.
Both milestones came without radio contact to NASA back on Earth. Since the moon blocked Orion, and its signal, from Earth, the crew entered a planned 40-minute loss of communication until it came out on the other side.
