Reflections: Looking Back on Artemis II

Article April 11, 2026

Astronaut Christina Koch looks out of the Orion capsule window towards Earth. Credit: NASA

Well…that was pretty magnificent, don’t you think?

The Artemis II mission is officially done, and I kind of can’t believe it. It feels like it’s been so long that this mission was going to be the next big thing that it’s a little hard to grasp that it finally actually did happen (in my defense, this flight was originally supposed to happen in 2024, so I can perhaps be forgiven a bit if I started to wonder if it would actually fly).

But what would a major historical milestone be without nerds like me picking it apart to point out their favorite moments? So that’s what I’m going to do! Please join me as I relieve my top moments from the incredible Artemis II missions (and be honest, these are going to have been some of your favorites too, you know it).

A Voice from the Past

We’ll start with when I most wanted to tear up. On the day they were to fly around the Moon, setting a new record for the longest distance humans had ever traveled from Earth, the astronauts received a very special message.

The record they broke was set in 1970 during the flight of Apollo 13. That mission was commanded by one of NASA’s most accomplished astronauts, Captain Jim Lovell. It was Lovell’s second trip to the Moon, as he was also a member of the Apollo 8 crew that became the first humans to enter lunar space in 1968. Point is that Lovell, who died in August 2025, was a spaceflight legend who is very closely associated with the Moon.

The Moon as seen through the window of the Artemis II Orion capsule Integrity. Credit: NASA

And before he died, he recorded a message for the Artemis II crew: “welcome to my old neighborhood.” There’s more to it than that, but if I was Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, or Jeremy Hansen, that’s the point where I would have become a useless mess.

That messiness would have been compounded by the end of the message: “good luck and godspeed from all of us here on the good Earth.” This is a direct callback to a very important moment on Apollo 8, the legendary Christmas Eve broadcast from lunar orbit which ended with mission commander Frank Borman saying “good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

Ad astra Captain Lovell. Even when you’re no longer with us you’re making space even awesomer than it already is.

Special Craters

Not every feature on the Moon has an official name, which opened up an opportunity for the crew as they broke that distance record. They selected a pair of small craters and formally requested names to be considered for those craters, and it was another tearjerker moment.

One crater they asked to be named for their Orion spacecraft, Integrity. The other, a small bright spot on the Moon’s near side, they asked to be named Carroll Crater. Carroll Wiseman was the wife of Artemis II mission commander Reid Wiseman and the mother of their two children. Carroll, a nurse, died of cancer in 2020.

The part of the Moon in the top half of this image is the near side, the part we regularly see from Earth. The bottom half is the far side, which we never see from Earth. In the middle is the large Orientale Basin, which we can sometimes see from Earth depending on exactly how the Moon wobbles. Credit: NASA

It was Jeremy Hansen who read out the formal request to name the crater after Carroll, and I challenge you to watch the zero-g astronaut hug pile that formed around Reid Wiseman immediately after and not get weepy. You can’t. (Fun fact: the first astronaut to propose naming a lunar feature after his wife was Jim Lovell, who during Apollo 8 picked out a tiny mountain that had not been previously identified on the lunar surface and dubbed it Mount Marilyn, a name which all subsequent Apollo astronauts dutifully adopted.)

Now technically these names aren’t official yet. The organization that officially names things in space is the International Astronomical Union, so it’s up to them whether or not to accept these requested names. But come on. You gonna be the IAU person to tell Reid Wiseman you’re NOT naming the crater after his wife? Please. (The IAU officially adopted the name Mount Marilyn in 2017, so there’s even precedent!)

The Funny Stuff

Okay, so the fact that the highly advanced spacecraft was having a specific kind of plumbing issue was funny, but I’m not going to dwell on toilet-gate because everyone else already has. What I found far funnier, anyway, was the fact that not even NASA is immune to issues with email inboxes.

The image of a full Earth captured by Reid Wiseman as the crew began their journey to the Moon. This pic has been dubbed the “Hello, World” pic. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

Before the crew had left Earth orbit Reid Wiseman was telling Mission Control that he couldn’t get Outlook to work on his computer. Just like us plebians on the ground he had to call the company IT department to remote into his computer and fix the issue for him. I’ve never had so much in common with an astronaut before.

Then there was the moment during the cruise to the Moon when NASA unexpectedly cut the video feed from inside the capsule. The reason, as Mission Control had to explain in a call up to the crew, was that Victor Glover, having finished his workout, had removed his shirt in full view of the camera.

One of the great things about NASA is the way they protect the privacy of their astronauts, and they cut the feed because Glover had not given his explicit permission to appear shirtless on the live feed. So it’s really a very admirable move for the space agency to pull. But also, the moment when Mission Control had to sheepishly call up and ask if Glover was okay being seen shirtless was very funny (for the record, Glover was fine with it).

Worth a Thousand Words

The Earth is seen setting behind the Moon as Artemis II does its lunar flyby. Credit: NASA

The pictures that were sent back along the way were no end of stunning, but there are three that I think really stood out. The first came on the second day of the mission, after the astronauts had broken Earth orbit and were on their way to the Moon. They became the first humans in over 50 years to be able to see the entire Earth in a single glance, and Wiseman captured an image out the spacecraft window—the Blue Marble in all its lovely glory, an image that has already earned the nickname “Hello, World!”

On April 6^th, as the astronauts prepared to fly behind the Moon and be cut off from Earth, they captured another image that is destined to be iconic. If you’ve ever seen Apollo 8’s famous “Earthrise” image, this one is the mirror to it—“Earthset” as the frail crescent of our planet vanishes behind that stark, gray limb of the Moon. It’s so poignant it almost hurts.

And finally, the Eclipse shot. Also taken on April 6^th, as the astronauts looped around the Moon our satellite temporarily blocked the Sun from their view, and the picture they took has so many incredible things going on. First of all, it’s an eclipse, so you can see the solar corona. Saturn and Mars are visible below and to the right of the Moon, while I’m pretty sure that’s Venus as the bright spot just above the spacecraft on the left.

But one of the most beautiful things about this image is that the Moon, despite blocking the Sun and therefore showing its entire nighttime side to the camera, is not a black disk. The left side of it is lit faintly as a crescent. That’s because Earth is on that side of the image, reflecting light from the Sun back onto the surface of the Moon. It’s Earthlight.

Coming Home

The Artemis II crew got to see a lunar eclipse as they did their lunar flyby. Credit: NASA

I found it hard to be productive at work on Friday. I had the mission livestream up on my computer and kept stopping whatever I was doing to watch the view of Earth getting bigger and bigger as the hours ticked by to reentry. Being able to actually see our planet getting bigger practically minute by minute was extremely distracting.

It’s just as well that reentry and splashdown occurred after working hours because there was no looking away. That final moment before the expected loss of signal from the capsule when you could see the glow of the heat of reentry appear out the capsule window, the shaky footage from the deck of the recovery ship that showed a bright dot high in the sky as crew zoomed home, the absolute flotilla of boats and helicopters standing by ready to spring into action, and most wonderful of all, the sight of those three gorgeous main parachutes unfurling against the pale sky before depositing the capsule into the crisp blue waters of the Pacific. It was a beautiful day to welcome the crew home.

At the end of a highly successful mission, Artemis II rode three enormous parachutes to a gentle splashdown in the Pacific. Credit:NASA

That’s the end of Artemis II, but to blatantly steal from Neil Armstrong, it’s just one small step. Time to get ready to make the next one. With the new Artemis mission schedule that was announced in late February, if all goes well then there’s only a little more than a year to go before Artemis III will test out a lunar lander in Earth orbit, followed a year later by the actual Moon landing.

But even with all that coming down the road it’s quite alright to take a moment to bask in the wonder and glory that was the Artemis II mission. I’ve never seen so many people excited about a spaceflight before, but I’m not surprised. Even in this day and age, it feels like nothing can bring us together the way sending members of our species far out into the void can. It puts things in perspective and reshapes how we look at ourselves and our planet.

It happened in the 60s and 70s with Apollo, and now I dearly hope it will continue to happen again with his twin sister. All hail Artemis.