The Sun is fully eclipsed by the Moon during the Artemis II crew's lunar flyby, April 7. NASA/Handout via REUTERS

Artemis II astronauts leave moon, make long-distance call to space station

This greater distance allowed the crew to view the moon as a full disk, including regions near both the North Pole and South Pole.

by · The Siasat Daily

Houston: Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts put in a call to their friends aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA’s Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

A view of Earth, partially hidden behind the Moon, captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT (22:41 GMT) April 6, 2026. NASA/Handout via REUTERS 
A view of Earth, partially hidden by the Moon, photographed through the Orion spacecraft window at 7:22 p.m. EDT (23:22 GMT) April 6. NASA/Handout via REUTERS 
The Moon, with its Orienale basin prominent at right through the Orion spacecraft’s window at 3:41 p.m. EDT (19:41 GMT) during their flyby of the Moon, April 6. NASA/Handout via REUTERS 
A view of Earth, partially hidden by the Moon. NASA/Handout via REUTERS 

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world’s first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Houston’s Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travellers and the space station’s three NASA and one French resident.

As Tuesday dawned, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman continued to beam back pictures of the previous day’s lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8’s Earthrise shot from 1968.

The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a Friday splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight.

It sets the stage for next year’s Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.