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NASA’s lunar mission Artemis II has been a huge success. The crew has shared viral images of Earth from space and the moon’s previously unseen far side.
Artemis II has successfully reached the moon as part of its flyby lunar mission. The crew has now swung around and is headed back toward Earth, having travelled farther from our planet than any other astronauts in history.
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The mission has been a social media success, with NASA sharing frequent updates and stunning photos of Earth from inside the cockpit.
There have been some dramas along the way, of course, with Artemis II losing contact for 40 minutes as part of a scheduled loop of the moon and various journalists questioning the point of it all, but the reaction has largely been positive.
This venture is the first to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo program in the 1970s, with NASA planning to land astronauts on the moon as part of a future mission called Artemis III. It also serves as preparation for potential Mars missions later down the line, too.
Artemis II’s crew includes commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. This is essentially a rehearsal mission to ensure that everything works correctly before landing people on the lunar surface of the moon at a later date.
‘As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration,’ said Jeremy Hansen.
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