TENERIFE, Spain — The commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission briefly feared that he and his crew would never return home from their trip around the moon after overshooting their turn-back point.
Commander Reid Wiseman and his three crewmates were supposed to reach 219,667 nautical miles (252,788 standard miles, or 406,823 kilometers) — farther than any humans have ever traveled from their home planet — before turning back toward Earth on the sixth day of their 10-day mission to the moon.
But the odometer on the Integrity spacecraft continued to tick upward as they shot past their intended point of return, leading the astronaut to fear that something had gone terribly wrong, he told an audience here at the Starmus VIII festival earlier this week. (This semi-annual event is held to celebrate achievements in science, exploration, and creativity.)
Latest Videos FromLive Science
“Mission control in Houston had told us our maximum distance would be 219,667 nautical miles and that was the furthest we were supposed to be from Earth,” Wiseman said. “I was watching this number, and I saw it hit 219,667, and I thought, ‘Great, this is the farthest we will be from Earth, and the next number I will see will be 219,666 — we’ll be going home.’ But about three minutes later, I didn’t see 219,666; I saw 219,668. It went up. I was like. ‘Huh? That’s weird.’
Artemis II astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman were presented with the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication at the Starmus VIII festival in Tenerife, Spain, on Oct. 17.
(Image credit: Max Alexander/Starmus)
“And then about three minutes later, it goes to 219,669, and that was the moment that I felt real fear because I thought we had just gone too far — we’re never going to come home — and so I was very scared,” he added.
Then, at last, he saw the counter start to drop. Meanwhile, NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch were at the window, doing science observations of the moon, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen was sending reports back to mission control — so Wiseman’s moment of terror went unnoticed.
When Wiseman saw the odometer click back to 219,668 nautical miles, he said, “We’re going home,” and the crew let out a cheer. “I knew there was a good chance we might make it,” he added.
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
In an interview with Live Science’s sister publicationThe Week Junior Science+Nature, Wiseman paid tribute to NASA’s Earth-based teams for the ultimate success of the mission.
“Getting home safely is a testament to the engineering rigor and the flight control teams back here on planet Earth, who put this rocket together and then who controlled it as we went out to the moon and came back. Those are the true heroes of this mission. They have real courage.”
The Artemis II mission launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1. It was the first crewed flight of the Orion space capsule and the first crewed mission to travel to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, taking nearly 10 days to fly around the lunar far side and return to Earth.
Nearly every moment of the crew’s activities in the Orion capsule was livestreamed to the world, garnering massive public interest in the mission. The Artemis II crewmembers were awarded the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication at the Starmus VIII festival.
Are you a NASA nerd? See how well you score on our Artemis quiz to find out!
for informational purposes only. We do not claim ownership, accuracy, or liability for the content provided. All rights belong to the original publisher.
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
__utma
ID used to identify users and sessions
2 years after last activity
__utmt
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
