Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons called it a “payoff day” as she watched history unfold during the Artemis II mission from Mission Control in Houston.
The crew — including Canada’s Jeremy Hansen — successfully completed a six-hour lunar flyby, travelling farther into space than any humans since the Apollo era and setting a new distance record.
Gibbons, serving as backup astronaut and ground communicator, described tense moments as the Orion spacecraft temporarily lost contact while passing behind the moon, before systems resumed as expected.
The mission marks a major milestone in NASA’s return to the moon, with plans to land astronauts near the lunar south pole within the next two years.
Now en route back to Earth, the crew is expected to splash down off the coast of California later this week, as anticipation builds for new images and scientific insights gathered during the historic journey.