Smile News: Artemis II Makes It around the Moon
Two years ago, NASA announced that humans would be returning to the Moon on Artemis II as a lunar flyby. On April 1, the mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the first launch to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen launched on April 1 and returned to Earth on April 10, completing their lunar flyby with this historic crew. Koch and Glover became the first woman and the first person of color, respectively, to fly to the Moon in all of human history. NASA used the heavy-lift rocket Space Launch System (SLS) to send the crew aboard the Orion spacecraft.
After the crew discovered two new craters on the far side of the moon, Hansen, the sole Canadian astronaut on the mission, called into radio control to name the two craters. One was named “Carroll” to honor Wiseman’s late wife, who passed away in 2020 from cancer. Wiseman, when describing the crater on the moon, said it was “a bright spot on the moon.”
We lost a loved one; her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katey and Ellie (Wiseman’s children),” Hansen said.
According to NASA, Artemis II is not the last time humans will return to the moon but rather a small step toward a larger goal. NASA has already announced Artemis III and IV, with plans to launch them in 2027 and early 2028. Artemis III will test the launch of Orion on SLS to demonstrate the docking capabilities needed to safely land astronauts on the surface of the Moon again. Artemis IV will be the most complex lunar mission humans have taken part in, with its return to the Moon’s surface. Astronauts on Artemis IV will explore the Moon’s South Pole region, which has never been visited by humans.
With the missions of Artemis II, NASA remains hopeful that it will once again return to the moon and, with the research and work they accomplish, can make a manned mission to Mars in the future. Innovations from these missions will only aid their goal of setting their sights not just on our Moon but farther into our galaxy.
