Fresh from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made history on Tuesday by establishing an unprecedented radio link with the International Space Station as they began their journey home from the Moon.
This marked the first-ever moonship-to-spaceship communication, a feat that was impossible during NASA's Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humans ventured into deep space.
Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman expressed the crew's anticipation, stating, "We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine."
The call also served as a joyous reunion for Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, despite the vast 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) separating them. The two astronauts previously made history together in 2019, conducting the world's first all-female spacewalk outside the orbiting laboratory.
Koch told her “astro-sister” that she'd hoped to meet up with her again in space “but I never thought it would be like this — it's amazing.”
“I'm so happy that we are back in space together,” Meir replied, “even if we are a few miles apart.”
Houston's Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travelers and the space station's three NASA and one French residents.
As Tuesday dawned, Wiseman continued to beam back pictures of the previous day's lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8's Earthrise shot from 1968.
Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it."
“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized" when viewing the home planet from the moon.
In a debriefing later with Mission Control's lead lunar scientist Kelsey Young, the astronauts recounted how they spotted a cascade of pinpricks of light on the lunar surface from impacting cosmic debris. The flashes lasted mere milliseconds and coincided by chance with Monday evening's total solar eclipse.
The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a Friday splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight.
It sets the stage for next year's Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.
As for the Orion capsule’s pesky potty, Mission Control assured the astronauts that no repairs were required Tuesday. The toilet has been on-and-off limits to the crew ever since last week’s launch, prompting them to rely on a backup bag-and-funnel system for urinating.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the crew following the lunar flyby Monday night: “We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing” ahead of the next Artemis mission.
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