Artemis 2 Is Naming Craters on the Moon
Artemis 2 broke the human distance record on Monday, and while they were at it, the crew started naming craters.
During the flight, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and his crewmates proposed naming two lunar features after their spacecraft and a family member. The first crater honors Integrity, the name they gave the Orion capsule. The second honors Carroll, Wiseman's late wife. The names will be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union after the mission ends. It is the kind of thing that happens on a flight that is also a test: you take notes, you observe, and you plant flags for the people who come next.
The record itself is real. At 12:56 PM Central time on Monday, April 6th, the four astronauts aboard Orion hit 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the Apollo 13 mark set in 1970. At their farthest point, they will reach approximately 252,760 miles. The geometry is a byproduct of the free-return trajectory: the path that keeps the spacecraft safe if something goes wrong also happens to push the apogee further from Earth than any human has ever traveled.
What they are doing at that distance is not science theater. The crew will come within about 4,070 miles of the lunar surface at closest approach. That is close enough to see the far side with human eyes for the first time in history. Every previous human who flew behind the Moon saw it through a window designed by engineers. Artemis 2 astronauts see it directly, with the naked eye, the way you see a mountain from an airplane window. They will also witness a solar eclipse as the Moon passes between their spacecraft and the Sun.
NASA has built in a 40-minute communications blackout for the pass. The Moon will block the signal between Orion and the Deep Space Network, and flight controllers in Houston will simply wait. When Orion reemerges and the signal reacquires, the team will know the trajectory worked. This is not an emergency. It is the plan.
The mission is more than halfway done. Splashdown is scheduled for approximately 8:07 PM Eastern time on Friday, April 10th, in the Pacific off San Diego. Recovery teams will bring the crew aboard the USS John P. Murtha, an amphibious transport ship, for post-flight medical evaluations before returning them to NASA Johnson. Everything from here is reentry and recovery.
The crater naming is the detail that endures. Apollo astronauts named geological features informally. Artemis 2 is doing it by the book, through the IAU, with a posthumous dedication to a crew member's family woven into the permanent record of the Moon.