1/8 | Artemis II astronauts will return to Earth to pass the baton to those who will reach the Moon. NASA’s Artemis II Orion spacecraft regained contact with Earth this Monday after spending about 40 minutes in absolute silence while flying over the far side of the Moon, a common interruption in this type of mission. – The Associated Press
Miami – The Artemis II crew expressed this Wednesday, in their last press conference from space, that they want to return to Earth to “pass the baton” to the astronauts who will reach the Moon, in addition to sharing that the mission reaffirmed that humans must “create together” instead of “destroy.”
“Part of our crew ethic and values from the beginning was that this is a relay race. In fact, to physically symbolize, we brought batons, which we plan to hand out to the next crew,” NASA mission specialist Christina Koch shared from the Orion spacecraft.
The pilot, Victor Glover, confessed that the moment he most looks forward to of the mission, which lasts 10 days, is the return to Earth on Friday, when they will splash down in the Pacific off the coast of California at 8:07 pm, Eastern Time in the United States (00:07 GMT on Saturday).
NASA’s Glover is eager to share the findings from Artemis II, the first crew to orbit the Moon in more than 50 years, representing the foundation for a future U.S. base on the natural satellite and eventual human exploration of Mars.
“There is a lot of information that you have already seen, but all the good stuff is coming back to us. There are so many more images, so many stories and, God, I haven’t even begun to process everything we went through. We still have two more days and traveling in a fireball through the atmosphere is also profound,” the pilot said.
1/18 | From the silence of space: Artemis II reveals stunning images of Earth. This image provided by NASA shows a view of Earth captured by NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman from the window of the Orion spacecraft after completing the translunar injection maneuver. – NASA via AP
“We love living on the ship”
This is the first manned mission of NASA’s Artemis program, which in 2022 launched a ship without astronauts to fly over the Moon, in 2027 it will send a crew to orbit the Earth and in 2028 it will send two groups of astronauts who will reach the surface of the natural satellite.
Despite the problems with the toilet, the smells and sharing a small space with three other people at all times, Koch said that the crew “has loved living on the Orion ship” and that “there is nothing they won’t miss” about living in space.
“I will miss the camaraderie. I will miss being so close to so many people and having a common purpose, a common mission, working hard at it every day, over hundreds of thousands of miles, with a team on the ground. This sense of teamwork is something you don’t usually experience as an adult,” the astronaut said.
“Humans must create together”
Jeremy Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), said that the mission reaffirmed to them that “humans must create solutions together instead of destroying.”
“My perspective has not changed or the perspective with which I took off, which was that we live on a fragile planet in a vacuum, in the vacuum of space. We know this from science. We are very lucky to live on planet Earth,” he stressed.
While the mission commander, Reid Wiseman of NASA, shared that the crucial moment was when his colleagues proposed naming a lunar crater in honor of his late wife, Carroll, on the most important day of their mission, Monday, when they passed by the farthest side of the celestial body.
“That was the peak moment of the mission. For me, that was when the four of us were the most united, the most linked, and we came out of that and really focused on the day ahead,” he mentioned.
The astronauts will dedicate their last entire day in space to technically prepare the ship for its re-entry into the atmosphere, while on Earth NASA and the United States Armed Forces prepare its reception.