‘We hear you loud and clear,’ Mission Control radioed as Artemis II reemerged from behind the Moon, restoring contact after a tense communications blackout on the lunar far side.
Moments earlier, the crew had set a new record for traveling 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than any humans in history, during their sweeping flyby of the Moon.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, completed the six-hour flyby after soaring behind the Moon, becoming the first humans in more than half a century to witness the distant hemisphere with the naked eye.
Communication was cut off at 6.43pm ET as the Orion spacecraft slipped behind the Moon, triggering a planned blackout caused by the lunar surface blocking radio signals between the spacecraft and antennas on Earth.
Inside the capsule, the astronauts continued along their pre-programmed flight path without real-time guidance from Mission Control, relying entirely on onboard systems during one of the mission’s most dramatic phases.
Known as a loss of signal, the blackout is a routine part of lunar missions, but it remains one of the most tense moments as crews move completely out of Earth’s reach while hidden behind the Moon.
‘We will see you on the other side,’ Glover said moments after referencing the teachings of Jesus, including the message to love your neighbor as yourself, just before communication with the ground team was lost.
Contact was restored roughly 40 minutes later as Orion reappeared from behind the Moon, officially ending the flyby and beginning the astronauts’ journey back to Earth, with splashdown expected Friday.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated the Artemis II astronauts on setting a new distance record from Earth.
‘On the far side of the Moon, 252,756 miles away, Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy have now traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history and now begin their journey home,’ Isaacman said in a statement on X.
‘Before they left, they said they hoped this mission would be forgotten, but it will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world.’
Isaacman added that the mission ‘isn’t over until they’re under safe parachutes, splashing down into the Pacific.’
Jenni Gibbons, the capsule communicator in Mission Control, marked the milestone by sending a special message to Wiseman, Koch, Glover and Hansen.
Before launch, the astronauts left mission patches with flight controllers in Houston.
One side of the patch featured the Artemis II logo, showing Earth in the foreground with the moon in the distance.
Now, as Orion rounds the moon, mission controllers symbolically flip the image, placing the moon in the foreground and Earth in the distance, to reflect the crew’s journey to the far side and back.
‘All of your flight controllers and your flight director have flipped their Artemis II patches around,’ Gibbons said. ‘We are Earthbound and ready to bring you home.’
The crew has concluded the six-hour flyby of the Moon, where they viewed the far side that permanently faces away from Earth.
As the astronauts swept over the far side in the Orion capsule, they reported seeing striking geometric patterns, winding formations they deemed ‘squiggles’ and unexpected shades of green and brown across the rugged lunar terrain.
The flyby comes after the four-person team shattered the Apollo 13 record in 1970, which saw the crew reach 248,655 miles from Earth. Artemis II surpassed the point by thousands of miles.
The Moon’s far side looks very different from the familiar near side, with heavily cratered terrain, a thicker crust and far fewer of the dark volcanic plains visible from Earth.
The astronauts spotted newly formed craters on the lunar surface that stand out like tiny holes in a lampshade, Koch told the NASA control room as the crew conducted its flyby.
‘All the really bright, new craters, some of them are super tiny, most of them are pretty small, there’s a couple that really stand out, obviously, and what it really looks like is a lampshade with tiny pinprick holes and the light shining through,’ she said.
Glover had been relaying what the team was witnessing from the windows, telling Mission Control that they saw ‘an island of terrain completely surrounded by darkness.’
‘Up to the north, there is a very nice double crater. It looks like a snowman just sitting there,’ he continued.
‘On the southern edge, there is a hole. Just blackness and a wall of brightness. It looks like there is a gigantic hole right there.’
While observing one large impact basin, Glover noted a striking contrast between its outer and inner rings.
‘When you look at the interior ring and the external ring, it’s almost as if the edges are starting to dry up,’ Glover said, comparing the formation to a wet spot that dries first around the edges.
He also highlighted several surface features that appeared to resemble mountain peaks ‘dusted with snow’ or chalk, a visual comparison rather than a literal description of the lunar terrain.
Koch shared some thoughtful remarks after spending time photographing the lunar surface.
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‘I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the Moon,’ she said of one moment toward the end of her observation rotation,’ she said.
‘It lasted just a second or two, and I actually couldn’t even make it happen again. But something just drew me in suddenly to the lunar landscape, and it became real.’
Koch had a philosophical takeaway from her time at Orion’s window, as well.
‘The truth is, the Moon really is its own body in the universe, it’s not just a poster in the sky,’ she said.
‘It is a real place. And when we have that perspective, and we compare it to our home, Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, Earth provides. And that is somewhat of a miracle, and one that you can’t truly know until you’ve had the perspective of the other.’
Glover said the feature that has captured his attention most during the lunar flyby is the Moon’s terminator, the boundary where daylight fades into darkness across the surface.
Speaking to Mission Control, he described the region as one of the most mesmerizing sights he has witnessed so far. Glover said the shifting line of shadow creates dramatic contrasts, with bright patches of sunlight breaking through deep, pitch-black valleys that appear almost bottomless from orbit.
He noted that the view is so striking that he has repeatedly returned to studying the terminator, spending much of his observation time sketching notes and reflecting on the dramatic landscape unfolding along the moon’s dividing line between light and night.
The Artemis II milestones are just several historic moments on Monday, as the astronauts will also be just 4,070 miles from the lunar surface.
Later in the mission, the crew is also set to witness a rare solar eclipse from lunar orbit, beginning at 8.35pm ET and lasting roughly one hour.
Gibbons radioed to the Artemis II crew from Mission Control: ‘On April 15, 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission, three explorers set the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet.
‘At that time, over 55 years ago, Lovell, Swigert and Haise flew 248,655 statute miles away from Earth. Today, for all humanity, you’re pushing beyond that frontier.’
NASA flight director Brandon Lloyd and others also marked the milestone by emailing the crew with ‘the longest person-to-person message ever sent in human history.’
Wiseman’s family watched the historic moment unfold from the viewing gallery on the ground.
When mission control told him his two daughters were smiling as they saw their father on a big screen, the commander responded by forming his hands into a heart, a quiet sign of love sent across more than 250,000 miles of space.
Weisman then radioed to NASA’s Mission Control: ‘From the cabin of Integrity, as we surpass the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honor of the extraordinary efforts and achievements of those who came before us in human space exploration.
‘We will continue our journey even farther before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything we hold dear, but we must use this moment to challenge this generation and the next to ensure this record is not long-lived.’
Moments after breaking the Apollo record, Hansen got on the radio to announce two newly named craters.
One crater was named Integrity, after the Orion capsule used by the crew during the historic mission.
‘If you were to look at Orientale on the far side and then draw a line straight up to Ohm on the far side, relatively in the middle is an unnamed crater, and we would like to suggest it be called Integrity,’ Hansen said.
But the most emotional moment came when Hansen revealed the name of a second crater. ‘It’s a bright spot on the Moon, and we would like to call it Carroll,’ he said.
Wiseman and Koch could be seen wiping away tears.
The announcement prompted the astronauts to embrace, while mission control in Houston fell silent in a rare moment of reflection.
