NASA's Curious Universe - Update: Artemis II Crew Flies Around the Moon

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

NASA’s Artemis II mission has flown around the Moon, and its four astronauts traveled farther from Earth than anyone in history. Relive this historic mission through the astronauts’ own words, including their scientific descriptions of the Moon’s surface, as well as the role of “space plumber” troubleshooting the toilet and the astronauts’ unifying message for humanity.  For Artemis II news, visit nasa.gov/artemis-ii 

The astronauts of Artemis II are back home. NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Cook, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hanson made history. The astronauts flew around the moon, living and working together, as they tested the spacecraft designed to send humans to deep space. You can relive Artemis II and learn what comes next for NASA's exploration of the moon at NASA.gov slash Artemis. Keep listening to this official NASA podcast to hear from the astronauts themselves and people behind the scenes who make Artemis missions possible.

You're listening to NASA's Curious Universe. I'm Jacob Pinter. And we're bringing you a special update episode that's coming out in the middle of NASA's Artemis 2 mission. On April 6, 26, four astronauts flew around the moon and reached a distance farther from Earth than anyone has traveled ever. They saw the moon in ways that no human ever has, including a period of about 40 minutes when they flew behind the moon completely out of contact with all of us on Earth. We're going to begin there. From Houston, Mission Control sent a goodbye message. Integrity Houston, you are six minutes from your 40-minute lunar flyby, LOS. From all of us, it's a privilege to witness you carrying the

fire past our farthest reach. Thank you. Godspeed. This loss of signal was a planned event. There's just no way to get a communication signal through the moon. Pilot Victor Glover responded. Houston Copies, we'll see you on the other side. With that, the astronauts were completely alone. Just the four of them, NASA astronauts, Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Cook, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hanson, floating in their spacecraft more than a quarter of a million miles from Earth, seeing parts of the moon with unaided eyes for the first time in human history. 40 minutes later, the astronauts regained contact.

Mission specialist Christina Cook came over the radio. Integrity, we have you loud and clear. Tommy. Have you the same, and it is so great to hear from Earth again. We are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. we see you two. When we burn, do not leave Earth.

We'll visit again. We will do radio. We will always choose Earth. We will choose each other. In Mission Control, all of your flight controllers and your flight director have flipped their Artemis 2 patches around. We are Earthbound and ready to bring you home. As this episode comes out, the astronauts of Artemis 2 are headed back to Earth. They've already sent back unique science data,

and incredible moving photos. In this episode, we're bringing you up to speed on the mission so far. We're going to cover how the crew got to the moon, including a firsthand account of launch. We'll explain how the astronauts snapped into action as plumbers in space. And we'll hear what the moon looked like through their eyes. First, let's hear what launch was like. Our producer Christian Elliott was at Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week when it happened. Christian, tell me all about it.

Hey Jacob, it was amazing. So my week actually started on March 27th. That was L-minus-5, or five days before launch. That's when Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy flew their T-38 jets in from Houston and landed on the old space shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Center. The Florida Sun was beating down on the tarmac. You could see the heat in the air. The astronauts climbed out of their planes in their blue flood.

suits and aviator sunglasses, they hugged each other, then they walked right up to a waiting microphone. I think the nation and the world has been waiting a long time to do this again. And on behalf of myself, Victor, Christina, Jeremy, we are really pumped to go do this for this entire team. It has been a lot of work. It's been a great journey. It's great to be down here in the Florida.

Warm air. The vehicle looked amazing on the pad on the way in. Victor and Christina led us here. It's just been an awesome start. to this journey here at Kennedy. I was standing right behind Charlie Blackwell Thompson, the Artemis Launch Director. She's the one who would make the final call

on sending these astronauts to space in just a few days. Hi, nice to see you. I just wanted to ask you how it feels to have the crew here. It feels amazing to have the crew here. I mean, you know, we know this day's coming. I was just at the pad this morning. Vehicle looks great. But when you see your flight crew arrive for launch day, I mean, there is something incredibly special about it, and there's something incredibly real about it.

Yeah. Can't wait. It's going to happen. Yes, indeed. Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you soon. The next few days, we all kept a close eye on the weather forecast. It remained 80% go.

The astronauts went into quarantine, so they wouldn't get sick right before launch, and they waited for their big moment. About two days before launch, the big countdown clock outside the press site building turned on, the launch team powered on the rocket and checked out its systems, then finally, launch day dawned. All right, it's launch day here at the Kennedy Space Center Press site. The astronauts have woken up. In a little bit, they'll be getting their crew survival suits on. In the meantime, the SLS rocket fueling is underway. And so far, the weather's looking good for a launch.

The launch controllers were all at their consoles and firing room one in the launch control center. 700,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel was filling up SLS's core stage tank. You can see the steam rising off the rocket in the distance. Meanwhile, the astronauts were a few miles away, getting into their orange crew survival suits. Outside the press site, across from the towering vehicle, assembly building, there was a crowd of people gathering on both sides of the road. A bunch of Goddard even showed up. Here we are.

Welcome. Thank you. They were all waving these little U.S. and Canadian flags. Some of them were carrying cardboard cutouts of the astronauts. Oh, you know, there's a rocket about to go off. You might have heard of it. Pretty much everybody there had played a role in the mission in some way or another. It's hard to get work done today.

Let me tell you. like this guy from Johnson Space Center in Houston that I met. I taught Reed Wiseman his very first robotics class. So I'm out here to support him, see him lift off again. Or an Orion spacecraft engineer who'd gotten engaged in front of the SLS rocket as it headed to the launch pad. He proposed to me at Rollout. So that's Barry and that's my fiancé. So we're just kind of like in the stars.

Yeah, wow. They were all out here because the astronauts were about to drive by in their astro van on their way to the launch pad. A NASA helicopter flew over, people started cheering, and then the silver Artemis van came into view around the corner. Once they arrived at the rocket, Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy rode an elevator more than 300 feet up the mobile launcher tower to the Orion capsule. The closeout crew, these specially trained experts in all-white suits, they loaded the crew into their seats and sealed the hatch. In four hours, the launch window would open. So I headed over to Banana Creek, a launch viewing site a little over three miles from the launch pad.

That's as closest spectators can safely get. Thousands of people were gathering there. The live broadcast was piped in on these big screens beside the bleakest. I met people who remembered watching the first moon landing in 1969, and many more people who weren't alive for it. I met little kids dressed as astronauts, and adults just as excited as those little kids. I met people who'd worked on Orion and SLS for decades. And even people who'd come here from all over the world, like a European Space Agency engineer from the Netherlands, who worked on the Orion's service module's solar panels.

I even ran into Charlie Blackwell Thompson's mom, who was in the front row of the bleachers, wearing SLS earrings. My daughter is a launch director for Charlene Blackwell-Thompson. And we came from Gaphy, South Carolina, to Leicester. She said Charlie had dreamed of working at NASA since she was a little kid, like the little kids running around on the bleachers here. And when she was little, I gave her a sweet. It's going to be an interesting trajectory.

She called me, said, Mom, do you still have it? I said I've had it for 15 years. And she said, I want it. So I milled it to her. And she has it with her today. And then at the terminator, they can see shadows and interesting things, which kind of gives you depth perception. And then, of course, in the sunlit picking up everyone's favorite.

I mean, I had two of them. We lost one. We'll see a total solar eclipse from the Iran. It's a shame. You just have one. There's only one out there. Then I made a new friend, Lucas Yee. He ran past his parents right up to the fence to look at the rocket on his tiptoes.

Lucas is a third grader from California. He was excited to show me Rise. It's this little plushy of a smiling moon wearing an Earth baseball cap. It represents Earth Rise, that famous photo from Apollo 8 of the Earth rising above the lunar surface. Rise was Lucas's entry. into NASA's Zero Gravity Indicator Moon mascot contest, and it won. NASA fabricated a flight-ready version of RISE,

and it was loaded aboard the Orion capsule. RISE floating up in Orion would be the first indication to the astronaut crew that they've reached microgravity. And it's so cool that just this little prototype of RISE is made into what real Ryan's actually going to the moon. Lucas had gotten to see the real rise for the first time during crew arrival, when Reed Weissman lifted Rise into the air after a ride in his jet. There's a deep part that commander,

Weissman, was putting a cart in there. Do you remember what those parts are carrying? Our names. Yeah, and along with other people's names as well. We are just part of this along with everybody else, right? More than five million names are flying aboard a ride. Ryan on Rise. I asked Lucas if he wanted to be an astronaut, like Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy.

Not an astronaut, but probably work at NASA and be an astrophysicist and probably plan missions to more, I guess. As we talked, a giant mascot costume version of Rise walked around in the crowd. Ask Lucas how he was feeling. Very excited. This is my first ever time watching a rocket launch. You know what? It's going to be my first time watching that rocket launch too. It's probably a lot of people's first time.

As we got closer to launch time, little issues with the rocket cropped up, but NASA engineers quickly fixed them and kept moving forward. Then, somehow, we were just minutes before the launch window opening. We heard Charlie's voice on the broadcast. Attention on the net. This is the launch director. forming the final poll for launch, verify no constraints, and go for launch. DLT.

Charlie, this is a Victor. We are going for our families. Have us luck. This is Christina. We are going for our teammate. This is Jeremy. We are going for all humanity. I don't think there was a dry eye in the crowd.

There was just this feeling of hearts swelling in our chests of pride and what humanity can do. As launch inched closer, I noticed Lucas and his family standing next to me along the fence line. And so, I got to experience humanity's return to the moon through the eyes of a little kid with stars in his eyes, a head full of rocket facts, and big dreams for the future of human space travel. As the countdown began, Lucas' mom lifted him up so he had a clear view through his binoculars. A GLS operating close to him off. Are you getting excited?

Yeah. Six minutes. Just a few minutes. And then the moment of liftoff. It caught us all by surprise. It started with this bright flash, almost as bright as the sun as the solid rocket boosters lit. Saw these birds flying away,

and that is when the cheering started. Then the rocket lifted off the pad with more than 8 million pounds of thrust. It cleared the launch tower so fast for something so huge and heavy. Then, a few seconds later, the sound hit us. It's rumbling, crackling. And the shockwave hit.

You could feel it in your chest, in your hair, the sheer power of this thing, taking four astronauts to space. Then it was just a tiny bright speck riding this huge white plume into the blue sky. It was surreal. That's what I keep coming back to. It was,

Sort of hard to believe that this thing had really happened, that humans were on the way to the moon. And then the day was over for us. We all filed out at the bleachers as the sun set over some big new fluffy clouds. But for the astronauts, this mission was just beginning. So, what did it feel like to be on that rocket? I guess most of us will never get to find out. But once the astronauts made it to space, they reported back. When those solids lit, you know, it was a ride where you're trying to be professional, but the kid inside of you wants to break out and just hoot and holler.

That's Victor Glover. And I will just add that over the radio, we didn't hear any hootin and hollering. So that's how you know he's a pro. All in all, the astronauts reported a smooth ride on the space launch system rocket. It takes a huge amount of teamwork to make that happen. In other episodes, we've gone deep into the launch engineers and ground support that makes launch possible. You can find those episodes wherever you're listening to this podcast. For three of the four astronauts, this was a return trip to space. For Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian

space agency astronaut, this was his first time off the launch pad. It just totally takes you by surprise, even though you're expecting it, at least for me anyway. And I just had a huge smile across my face. Once the astronauts reached space, they had work to do. They had to set up their Orion spacecraft, which is named Integrity, to be their home for about 10 days. A major goal of this mission is testing the spacecraft's life support systems. On NASA's live coverage of Artemis II, we see slices of life inside Integrity. The astronauts exercise. They brush their teeth.

They shave. One thing they do that, thankfully we don't see, is use the bathroom. In the early hours of the mission, the astronauts reported problems getting the toilet set up. But NASA astronaut Christina Cook was up to the task. I'm the space plumber. I'm proud to call myself the space plumber. I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board. Later in the mission, as the astronauts flew toward the moon, there was even more toilet troubleshooting.

Artemis, too, is a test flight. And as engineers learn lessons for future missions, they'll be paying attention to the toilet, too. Here's Debbie Korth. She's the deputy program manager for Orion. Yeah, I mean, I think space toilets and bathrooms is something everybody can really understand. We're flying it for the first time. Apollo didn't have that kind of technology in the vehicle.

So it's always a challenge. They still have challenges on Space Station with toilets. It's just a very complicated thing to accomplish. Before the astronauts left Earth orbit, there was also some flying to do. One key task was a test called proximity operations. Pilot Victor Glover took manual control of intense and became the first person to fly Orion in space.

We have good separation, good motion. We are ATP-D-Go. This test drive gives NASA data about Orion's handling, which will be useful for future missions when Orion docks with other spacecraft. During proximity operations, Orion essentially did a backflip and faced a discarded stage of the rocket,

called the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, or ICPS. Now, Victor had practiced this in a similar many, many times. And over the radio, he described emission control how the real thing performed. Much quieter. That little rumphing like we're driving on a rocky road, but much quieter than in the SIM. I'm showing about three degrees wide on ICPS.

And it's holding right near the center. Victor spent a little more than an hour flying integrity. Through a camera feed, we can see this maneuver just as he did. Integrity slowly moves toward a small circular target in the middle of ICPS. Then, Victor makes a few adjustments. Here comes six outs. One, two, three. Eight down pulses.

And integrity cuts a smooth path around to the side of the discarded stage. ICPS was a white cylinder floating in space. It had black and white markings meant to provide data for rocket engineers. and a red, white, and blue American flag that popped against the black background of space. I can see the side docking target. That is a good-looking American flag. Wow.

NASA will review data from the proximity operations demonstration, but the early reports are excellent. Rick Henfling is a flight director for Artemis II who watched the demonstration from inside mission control. It was pretty spectacular to watch Orion pretty much stop on a dime. You know, Victor would deflect the hand controller, release it, and you saw the video of the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, you'd see it move and then just stop right on a dime. And so I would say we've got some pretty well-engineered control laws on Orion. Happy going off, Fox. Great flying with you, Houston. Nice vehicle.

After a long first day in flight, the crew eventually got some rest. And even for the season space travelers like Commander Reed Wiseman, there were still some small adjustments to make for life in microgravity. It's nice to sleep in waitlessness again. Every time I was dozing off last night, I had that image and I was tripping off a curb and I was waking myself up, so my body's getting reacclimated. It's been a few years since I've been up here.

For the beginning of their mission, for the first 25 hours or so after launch, the Artemis 2 astronauts orbited Earth. On the evening of April 2nd, they made the maneuver that sent them toward the moon. It's called Transluner Injection. Artemis 2 is on a flight path called a free return trajectory, which uses the gravity of Earth and the moon to naturally guide the crew home. So, transluner injection also set the course back to Earth. From mission control, flight controllers radioed Orion that they were ready to go.

Integrity, Houston has completed the pole for TLI. When the engine ignites, you embark on humanity's lunar homecoming arc and set the course to return Integrity and her crew safely home. Houston is go for TLI. With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. With that, Orion's main engine fired for exactly five minutes and 50 seconds. Integrity looks like a good burn. We're confirming. After more than 50 years, humans were en route to the moon.

And shortly after, Reed Wiseman described the mood inside integrity. You know, we just got done our trans lunar injection burn, and it was pretty tense moments there for a second. And when we got done that burn, we just kind of looked at each other as a crew. We had been to the moon before in 1969, 1968 through 1972. It's been a long time since we've been back. And I got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this, sending four humans 250,000 miles away. is a Herkulean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that. A few days later, on April 6th, Artemis 2 reached the moon.

As their flyby began, the astronauts notched a new record. They flew farther from Earth than any other mission, breaking a record held by Apollo 13. The astronauts also made their mark as explorers. They suggested names for two moon craters that up until now have been unnamed. The first crater they named Integrity after their spacecraft. The second crater they named Carol. Carol was also the name of Reed Wiseman's wife.

She died in 2020. Here's Jeremy Hanson announcing the crew's decision. Integrity and Carol crater, loud and clear. As the moon grew closer, the astronauts shifted into scientist mode. They had received intensive geology instruction leading up to Arkansas. And inside mission control, a science officer communicated with the astronauts directly, assisted by teams of other scientists working in back rooms nearby. One of those back rooms is called the Sir, the Science Evaluation Room.

That's an acronym that you're going to hear a few times. The astronauts began sending down detailed descriptions of the moon's surface. Really bright are pretty small. Integrity science. Oh my gosh, that was an amazing picture you just painted. just painted, I glanced over at the SER video, and I literally saw fist pumps in the air. Those types of observations are things that humans are uniquely able to contribute. Amaze, amaze, amaze, thank you, Reed.

The astronauts had a long day observing the moon. They did this for hours and hours. At times, mission control would pop in to tell an astronaut, hey, your kids are here, watching along with us. Once as Victor Glover finished a science description, Mission Control had a personal message. His wife was listening. Victor, thank you. You got a cheer from science there. I also want to let you know that we have Deanna Glover with us in the viewing gallery. She's all smiles.

We love that we got a hey babe too, and we also have one of your lovely daughters here watching you guys work. All four astronauts kept on working. and integrity kept giving the crew new views of the moon. As they kept flying, the astronauts reached the point where they lost signal with Earth. It's the part we heard at the beginning. We love you from Houston copies. We'll see on the other side. Later, once they were back in communication with Earth, the astronauts witnessed something else that left them awestruck. They flew into an eclipse.

The moon completely blocked the sun for almost an hour. On Earth, total solar eclipses only last for a few minutes. So this was a special opportunity to study the moon and the sun. And just like eclipses on Earth, it was apparently pretty incredible to behold. Now, there was a scientific question on their list that could best be answered in the dark. Like Earth, the moon is constantly bombarded by space debris, from the size of grains of sand to rocks as biggest boulders. But unlike Earth, the moon has no atmosphere to catch that debris before it reaches the surface. On the moon, these meteor impacts make a quick flash of light. They're called

impact flashes. We've detected them with spacecraft, and scientists wanted to know if the Artemis two astronauts could see impact flashes with their own eyes. Amazing news. I literally just looked over at the Sur and they were jumping up and down literally. If you could describe where on the moon, you saw them, please. The astronauts kept feeding science descriptions to NASA teams in mission control, including the Sir, the Science Evaluation Room. Astronauts are professionals, and the Artemis II crew was prepared for this moment. But I have to emphasize, they were seeing some truly mind-blowing stuff,

especially during this eclipse. Over the radio, astronauts described space as a backdrop that almost looked deep, blue, filled with many stars. They saw dots of light that they thought were planets. The moon was dark, but they saw a glow around its edges. After about an hour, the sun reappeared over the edge of the moon. Okay, we all think we're starting to see something. I believe the most popular term is baby hair. And integrity reemerged into sunlight. As the astronauts continued flying, like all good things, their time observing the moon came to an end. And integrity science, this is basically wrapping up your fly-by-day observations.

I can't say enough how much science we've already learned and how much inspiration you've provided to our entire team, the lunar science community, and the entire world with what you were able to bring today. You really brought the moon closer for us today, and we cannot say thank you enough. And science signing off and can't wait to talk to you tomorrow morning. With that, Artemis II began the trip back to Earth. And this is the part where I have to mention that Artemis II is also seeing Earth in new ways. One of my favorite quotes ever comes from the late astronaut Bill Anders.

He was on Apollo 8, the first time humans ever flew to the moon. Like Artemis 2, the Apollo 8 astronauts paved the way for future missions to land on the moon and then to explore it. Apollo 8 gave us Earthrise, the iconic photo of our home planet rising above the moon's surface. Bill Anders is credited with taking that photo. Later in life, Anders said, we came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth. Well, the Artemis 2 astronauts have been observing Earth 2. After their trans-luner injection burn, with Earth still outside the windows of integrity, Jeremy Hansen called down to mission control.

Please, Jeremy, we are all yours. The Artemis two astronauts have said over and over, they're flying in the name of all humanity. And on their way to the moon, and as they flew past it, they could see our home and all of us. Well, the first thing I would say is trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful. And from up here, you also look like one thing. You know, homo sapiens is all of us, no matter where you're from or, you know, what you look like. We're all one people. And so, you know, we call amazing things that humans do moonshots for a reason, because this brought us together and showed us what we can do when we put, not just putting our differences aside, when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great.

Thanks for listening to this NASA podcast. The Artemis II mission prepares NASA to keep exploring, including setting up humanity's first ever moon base and building the foundation to leave footprints on Mars. You can dive deeper into Artemis 2 and learn more about NASA's future plans at NASA.gov. And you better believe we will tell you about it on NASA's podcasts. All of NASA's podcasts are available with no ads ever. at NASA.gov slash podcasts.

This is NASA's Curious Universe, an official NASA podcast. You can find our whole Artemis 2 series at NASA.gov slash Artemis Podcast. Again, NASA.gov slash Artemis Podcast. Our Artemis 2 series was written and produced by Christian Elliott and me, Jacob Pinter. Patty Boyd could not be here for this episode

because she is in Houston as a member of the science team as the astronauts fly around the moon, and we cannot wait to hear all about it. Our executive producer is Katie Conan's. West Buchanan designed the show art for this series. Music for this series comes from Universal Production Music. We had support throughout this series from Rachel Kraft,

Lisa Allen, Laura Bleacher, Brandy Dean, Courtney Beasley, Amber Jacobson, and Thalia Petrinos. For this episode, we had extra help, from Tony Haramillo, Leah Martin, Tiffany Fairley, Grace Bridges, April Owens, and James Gannon. You can find transcripts for every episode of Curious Universe and explore NASA's other podcasts at nassah.gov slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode of NASA's Curious Universe,

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