Artemis II crew strapped in for descent to Earth after final checks

cynthia II | Crew reverting to ground this evening after historic lunar flyby

Artemis II splashdown: Why Orion’s re-entry is so high risk

What to expect ahead of Friday's Artemis II splashdown | Hanomansing Tonight

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This is NASA's schedule for they key milestones in tonight's operation (all times ET):

Brother of Artemis II commander 'super excited and proud' of space mission

The Artemis II mission is set to end late Friday, after a record-breaking trip of a lifetime around the moon. Bill Wiseman, the brother of Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman, shares how he and the rest of the family are feeling about the spacecraft's return and the crew naming a crater after Reid's late wife Carroll.

No ace is thomas more eager to escort the astronauts on the run aground than their families. Wiseman's comrade and fellow naval officer, Bill Wiseman, said he and his two nieces are counting down the minutes until the mission commander can tell them about his achievements in person.

"Technically, even spiritually, just the way the crew has been able to charm the world with a little bit of levity and some fantastic photography, and just really getting out there and reigniting the explorer gene in most folks. I'm super excited and proud of what these guys have done."

Artemis II crew makes history with furthest distance from Earth

The crew of the Artemis II space mission broke the record at 1:57 p.m. ET on Monday as the crew of four astronauts passed the record of 400,171 kilometres from Earth set by Apollo 13 in April 1970. Canadian river cosmonaut Jeremey Hansen took a mo to inquire NASA to dedicate 2 names for locations on the moon as a tribute to their spaceship, Integrity, and to Carroll, the late wife of fellow astronaut Reid Wiseman.

There was one particularly emotional moment during the mission. In a message to mission control in Houston, Hansen suggested naming a moon crater Integrity, after the name the crew gave the Orion capsule; and that another be named in honour of Wiseman's wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.

"A number of years ago we started this journey, our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one," Hansen said, before describing the location of the crater through tears. "It's a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call that Carroll."

Later, Wiseman said his crewmates had raised the idea while they were in quarantine before launch.

"That was an emotional moment for me," the mission commander told reporters. "I said, 'Absolutely, I would love that' ... But I can't give the speech. I can't give the talk."

Carney asks Artemis II crew about risk, playlist faves

The Artemis II crew, which includes Canadian mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, spoke with Prime Minister Mark Carney during a live space-to-Earth connection on Wednesday. Carney asked the astronauts about risk-taking, as well as their favourite wake-up songs during the mission.

Instead of using an alarm, NASA's mission control has been waking up the Artemis II astronauts each morning by playing a special song. 

It's a long-standing NASA tradition that dates back to the early days of space exploration in the 1960s, when astronauts were serenaded by their mission control colleagues in the spirit of camaraderie. 

NASA dropped a highly anticipated playlist on Spotify of the songs the Artemis II crew has heard during their lunar mission. The tracks on the list are:  

During a call to the Orion capsule on Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney asked the astronauts what their favourite wake-up tunes have been during the mission. You can hear their responses in the video above.

I had a chance this morning to talk to one of Hansen's old Royal Military College buddies, who also did pilot training with him.

Maj.-Gen. Chris McKenna, commander of 1 Canadian Air Division and the Canadian NORAD region, is wearing a Hansen mission patch T-shirt under his military jumpsuit today, and says he'll be following the re-entry closely.

"I think it's going to be similar to the launch, where you're going to be holding your breath," he said.

McKenna said he was awestruck by the images from the lunar flyby, and has been inspired by the mission, "the audacity of it, the vision to be able to go and do this." 

"But I think the thing I like the most about it is the collaboration," he added.

"The world's in a bit of a tailspin right now, geopolitically a very difficult situation in many places in the world. And you have this amazing mission of hope, you have an amazing mission of collaboration, of exploration. I mean, it's hard not to get behind it."

Artemis II sends back never-before-seen images of the moon

NASA has released new images of the moon taken by the Artemis II crew and revealed more about the astronauts' observations during the historic lunar flyby.

The astronauts spent seven hours capturing images and making observations of the moon's surface during the lunar flyby.

NASA geologist Kelsey Young said Tuesday there were "audible screams of delight" in the science room when the crew mentioned seeing impact flashes, which are caused by "micro-meteorites" hitting the lunar surface.

Here’s a quick little fun fact: The narrator you can hear on the NASA livestream is a legend.

If you remember watching the space shuttle launches from the 1990s onward, you might recognize what NASA calls the "captivating voice of celestial storyteller" Rob Navias.

Navias works at the office of public affairs on mission operations and television at the Johnson Space Center’s office of communications in Houston. 

Before joining NASA in 1993, he was a broadcast journalist, starting as a correspondent covering the shuttle program. Over the course of his journalism career, he covered the Pioneer 11 launch in 1973 — a mission that studied the asteroid belt and Saturn’s rings — along with the test flights for the space shuttle Enterprise in 1977. 

He went on to lend his voice to NASA launches and spacewalks.

This man has been around!

Tears from Artemis II astronauts after breaking Apollo 13 record

Moments after breaking Apollo 13's distance record, the Artemis II astronauts asked to name two relatively fresh lunar craters, proposing Integrity — the name of their Orion capsule — and Carroll, in honour of commander Reid Wiseman's late wife. Wiseman wept as Canadian mission specialist Jeremy Hansen put in the request to mission control, and all four astronauts embraced.

On Monday, Artemis II took humans the farthest they have ever been from Earth. 

The Orion spacecraft reached 406,771 kilometres from home as it swung around the far side of the moon, beating the previous record of 400,171 kilometres set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

The Artemis II mission was a test to prepare for future missions that aim to put boots on the lunar surface.

But it was also a scientific mission, with one of the objectives being to study the lunar surface. 

The crew had 30 targets planned out ahead of time by NASA's science team, who provided them with four cameras so the astronauts could photograph them for future study. It’s believed they have more than 175 gigabytes of photography collected.

One of the beauts they looked at was the Orientale basin, pictured above. Scientists are very interested in how this large impact crater formed. 

While the crew provided NASA's science team with good descriptions during the flyby, it's the photos that will be studied over the next few months and even years to better understand the moon’s formation. 

Understanding the moon helps us understand our solar system better, especially our own planet. That’s because the Earth has plate tectonics that essentially destroy much of our ancient natural history. The moon has none of that, so it is a treasure trove of history.

As well as giving us new glimpses of the moon and new records, Artemis II has also been a test of crucial systems and how they respond with astronauts on board. 

Originally, this was supposed to be the final test before Artemis III landed astronauts on the moon in 2028. 

But NASA recently shook up those plans, changing the third Artemis mission to a low-Earth orbit test sometime in 2027 and making Artemis IV — scheduled for early 2028 — the one that lands on the lunar south pole.

Artemis V intends to return to the lunar surface in late 2028, after which missions are planned roughly once a year, NASA says. 

The weather off San Diego seems good to go for splashdown. 

The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston say clouds are in the process of dissipating, with winds of about six knots (about 11 km/h) and wave heights of less than four feet (1.2 metres), which will be manageable for recovery teams from the U.S.S. John P. Murtha. 

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