With the Artemis II crew making its way back to Earth, NASA released photos the astronauts took during their historic lunar flyby. The four-person crew looped the far side of the moon, lost communications with Earth for about 40 minutes as expected, and captured thousands of images showing Earthset and a solar eclipse. They traveled farther from Earth than any humans before, reaching a maximum distance of more than 252,000 miles.
Today the astronauts were given a relatively light schedule: some manual flying practice, internal science work and checks, and time to contact family, regroup and recharge for the roughly four-day return trip and planned splashdown off the coast of San Diego on Friday. While looping the moon they observed parts of the lunar far side not previously seen by human eyes; NASA scientists noted the crew used both photography and direct visual observation (the left window for photos, the right for human observations), and they expect to compare image data with the astronauts’ verbal descriptions to study color and detail the human eye recorded.
Reentry is the mission phase regarded as most dangerous after launch, so teams remain focused on procedures and systems as the capsule heads home.
