Artemis II astronauts head for home, wrapping up final tests and experiments

Hurtling back toward Earth after a historic loop around the moon, the Artemis II astronauts worked through a relatively light day in space Wednesday, wrapping up a few final tests before packing up for re-entry and splashdown Friday.

Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen planned to hold a news conference late Wednesday, answering reporters’ questions about the flight, the first piloted trip around the moon in more than a half century.

The crew then plans to take another turn at manually piloting their Orion capsule, testing their ability to precisely maneuver the spacecraft.

Earlier tests with all four astronauts demonstrated the precise response to pilot inputs that could be needed during future dockings with lunar landers in the moon’s orbit if problems prevent automatic operations.

Flight controllers, meanwhile, reviewed the re-entry timeline and Navy recovery crews headed to the splashdown site off the Southern California coast near San Diego where the Orion capsule is expected to splash down at 8:07 p.m. ET Sunday.

Back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, scientists continued poring over thousands of photographs captured by the astronauts as they passed over the far side of the moon Monday, along with video and recorded audio descriptions of various high-priority targets.

Nine three-man Apollo crews flew over the moon’s far side between 1968 and 1972, but those flights were launched when the near side was fully illuminated and the far side was in shadow.

The Artemis II astronauts were the first humans to see, with their own eyes, large swaths of the far side in daylight, giving researchers insights that could lead to a better understanding of the moon’s evolution.

So far, NASA’s first piloted moon mission since the final Apollo landing in 1972 has gone off like clockwork with only a small number of anomalies. One of those involved the ship’s toilet, which has had problems dumping liquid waste overboard as required.

While an annoyance at times for the crew, it’s been a relatively minor issue given the technical challenges of safely flying to the moon and back.