A New Era of Lunar Exploration
The astronauts from the Artemis II mission, who reignited interest in lunar exploration, praised their spacecraft, particularly the heat shield, for its performance during reentry. In their first press conference since returning to Earth, the three Americans and one Canadian highlighted that their lunar flyby has positioned NASA in a stronger position for a crewed moon landing in two years and an eventual lunar base. They spoke from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, their home base.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen launched to the moon from Florida on April 1. This marked NASA’s first lunar crew in more than a half-century and the most diverse crew ever. They became the farthest travelers ever, breaking the record set by Apollo 13, as they circled the far side of the moon, revealing features never seen by human eyes before. The sight of a total lunar eclipse added to the awe.
Their Orion capsule, named Integrity, parachuted into the Pacific last Friday to conclude the nearly 10-day journey. Artemis II’s return to Houston coincided with the 56th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13.
Wiseman mentioned that he and Glover “maybe saw two moments of a touch of char loss” to the heat shield as Integrity descended through the fastest, hottest part of reentry. Once aboard the recovery ship, they examined the bottom of the capsule as best they could, looking for any signs of damage. They noticed a small amount of charred material on the shoulder where the heat shield meets the capsule.
“For four humans just looking at the heat shield, it looked wonderful to us. It looked great, and that ride in was really amazing,” Wiseman said. He cautioned that detailed analyses are still needed. “We are going to fine-tooth comb every single, not even every molecule, probably every atom on this heat shield,” he said.
The heat shield on the first Artemis test flight in 2022, which had no one aboard, came back so damaged that it delayed Artemis II by months if not years. Instead of rebuilding it, NASA changed the capsule’s entry path to reduce heating. Future capsules will have a new design.
As the parachutes deployed right before splashdown, Glover described feeling like he was in freefall — like diving backward off a skyscraper. “That’s what it felt like for five seconds,” he said, adding when the ride smoothed out: “It was glorious.”
Since their return, the four astronauts have undergone numerous medical tests to check their balance, vision, muscle strength, and coordination, as well as their overall health. They even donned spacewalking suits for exercises under conditions simulating the moon’s one-sixth gravity of Earth to see how much endurance and dexterity future moonwalkers might have upon lunar touchdown.
NASA is already working on Artemis III, the next step in its grand moon base-building plans. The platform from which the rocket launches headed back Thursday to Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be prepped for next year’s Artemis launch.
Still awaiting an assigned crew, Artemis III will remain in orbit around Earth as astronauts practice docking their Orion capsule with one or two lunar landers in development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Artemis IV will follow in 2028 under NASA’s latest schedule, with two astronauts landing near the moon’s south pole.
NASA is aiming for a sustainable moon presence this time around. During the Apollo moonshots, astronauts kept their visits short. Twelve astronauts explored the lunar surface, beginning with Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969 and ending with Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972.
Koch said that since returning, she and her crewmates are “feeling even more excited and just ready to take that on as an agency.” “We made it happen,” she added.
Everyone will need to accept extra risk to achieve all this and trust that any future problems can be figured out in real time, Hansen noted. “We’re not going to be able to pound everything flat before we go. We’re going to have to trust each other,” he said.
While everything went smoothly for them, “it was also very clear to us that it can get pretty bumpy,” he said. Future crews will have to “understand it can get real bumpy real fast.”
