CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Three months after making history by flying around the moon, the four-member Artemis II crew returned to Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday for a reunion with the very capsule that carried them on their record-setting journey.
It was the first time the crew had set foot at the launch site since lifting off in April. Standing at the now-empty pad where a massive Space Launch System rocket once towered, commander Reid Wiseman reflected on the sight. “It’s a lonely place without that rocket on it,” he said. The crew spent the day expressing gratitude to the many workers and teams who made the mission a success.
During the lunar fly-around, the three NASA astronauts and one Canadian space traveler shattered distance records, venturing 252,756 miles — or 406,771 kilometers — from Earth. It marked the first time humans had journeyed to the moon in more than 50 years.
Wiseman noted that excitement surrounding the mission remains strong among the public. He shared a touching moment from about a week ago, when a woman approached him while he was boarding a plane in France and handed him her boarding pass with a handwritten note. The message read: “Thank you for reminding us about joy and hope in the universe again.”
The crew is enthusiastic about passing the torch to the next mission team. Last month, NASA announced the Artemis III crew — three NASA astronauts and one Italian — who are set to fly next year. That mission will stay in Earth orbit and practice docking procedures with lunar landers currently being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Artemis IV is tentatively planned for as early as 2028 and will include a moon landing by two astronauts who have not yet been named.
The Artemis III crew is entirely male, but Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch — who made history as the first woman to travel to the moon — said that fact does not trouble her. What would concern her more, she explained, would be if someone overrode NASA’s crew selection process just “to make it look a certain way.” “I am so glad and so proud that that’s not the situation we have,” she told reporters.
Koch flew to the moon alongside Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen. Earlier this week, Hansen announced he will be departing the Canadian Space Agency in September, though he plans to remain a reservist in the Royal Canadian Air Force and will continue to support the Artemis program going forward.
