The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission is reflecting on the record-breaking mission around the moon and back about a week after the four astronauts splashed down in the Pacific.
The four astronauts spent more than nine days in the Orion space capsule on their journey, testing the vehicle for future missions and taking observations of the far side of the moon. It took them farther than any humans have ever traveled in space.
The mission was broadcast in real time to people here on Earth. The crew captivated the public in news stories and on social media.
Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen said he’s just now understanding the impact this mission had on the public.
“What I've seen has brought me more joy, but more hope for our future,” said Hansen. “I just can't wait to see what we do with it next.”
That sentiment was shared with NASA mission specialist Christina Koch, who hopes that public impact is what people remember most about this mission.
“I cannot overstate how important that was to us,” said Koch. “It was every bit as important as accomplishing the technical goals and being there for our NASA teammates was to make this the world's mission and for it to have a positive impact on as much of the world.”
The mission was a critical test flight of the Orion spacecraft ahead of future missions that aim to return humans to the lunar surface. The crew tested its life support systems and the vehicle’s manual controls.
“It's an immense privilege to fly a spaceship at all, and to fly a new spaceship is kind of an unreal privilege,” said mission pilot Victor Glover. “I'm really glad we all got to fly that.”
Glover and the rest of the crew took turns manually controlling the spacecraft. While the vehicle’s computer handles most of the flying, the ability for astronauts to take over controls is important during emergencies.
“It flew like a dream,” said Glover. “I’m really glad everyone got to fly it.”
One key system of the spacecraft – the bathroom – ran into numerous issues during the flight.
Multiple times during the mission, the crew were unable to use it. It was found the system that dumps the wastewater was to blame, not the toilet.
“I just want to say 100% point blank, that was a wonderful toilet,” said commander Reid Wiseman. “When you go to the bathroom, at the end of doing that, you flush the toilet. The toilet flushed just fine, but then when the liquid went out the bottom of the toilet, it got clogged up in our vent line.”
Engineers will take the space capsule apart to find the root cause and fix it for the next mission.
Work on that next mission, Artemis III, has already begun at the Kennedy Space Center. Teams began moving the Mobile Launcher from the launch site of Artemis II to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where NASA will build the SLS rocket for Artemis III, which could launch as early as next year.
