Artemis-II : It’s Thunderous Welcome For The Four Astronauts After Successful Lunar flyby Mission

Picture Credit : @NASA/X

Amid claps and cheers, four astronauts of National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Artemis-II mission splashed down in the Pacific ocean after a historic flight to the moon – the first by humans in more than 50 years.

“The path to the moon is open but the work ahead is greater than the work behind,” Amit Kshatriya, Indian-origin NASA Associate Administrator told a press conference shortly after the Artemis-II crew returned to earth off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 eastern time on Friday.

The lunar flyby mission involving Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen was the first journey to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 when Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent three days exploring the lunar surface.

Rick Henfling, the flight director, said the Artemis II astronauts are ‘happy and healthy and ready to come home to Houston’.

Artemis II was the first crewed mission to utilise NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew module — demonstrating that the agency’s equipment can propel astronauts out of Earth’s orbit and bring them safely home.

“Yesterday, flight director Jeff Radigan said we had less than a degree of an angle to hit after a quarter of a million miles to the moon,” Kshatriya told reporters.