NASA Artemis II astronauts to speak from lunar orbit after record-setting flyby
By Joey Roulette
HOUSTON, April 8 (Reuters) – Four astronauts returning from the far side of the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis II mission will speak to reporters at their first news conference from space on Wednesday.
The crew of Artemis II, flying in its Orion capsule since its launch from Florida last week, reached the Moon earlier this week as they navigated a path that took them beyond the farthest-flying humans in history.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen “are the first wave of astronauts in a series of multibillion-dollar missions under the Artemis program that aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon by 2028 before China and establish a long-term U.S. presence over the next decade, building a lunar base for possible future missions to Mars.”
Back on Earth, dozens of lunar scientists gathered this week in adjacent rooms at NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston, scribbling notes and debating over a constant stream of real-time and recorded audio from the Artemis II astronaut crew in their Orion spacecraft.
Advances in lunar science generally rely on satellites in lunar orbit and terrestrial observations. But the crew’s six-hour lunar flyby provided a real-time feed of scientific collections from human eyes, allowing rare exchanges between ground teams and their scientific colleagues more than 252,000 miles (405,555 km) away in deep space.
Scientists view NASA’s Artemis II mission as an important first step in unlocking the mysteries of how the solar system formed. The Moon, Artemis II mission specialist Koch said before launching into space last week, is a “witness plate” for the formation of our solar system.
The crew’s lunar surveys also provide a first look at what could become future sites for robotic rovers, which NASA hopes to begin flying quickly starting next year.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; editing by Chris Sanders and Bill Berkrot)
