Artemis II astronauts break a record, name a crater

A few minutes before 2PM Eastern on Monday, the crew of Artemis II broke a record set 56 years ago by the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission — at over 248,655 miles, they have now traveled further from Earth than any humans before them. They marked the occasion with a crater naming ceremony that left the whole crew embracing each other in lunar orbit.

The Artemis II crew proposed names for two craters on the Moon. The first they named after their spacecraft, Integrity. The second was more personal. “A number of years ago, we started this journey and our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one,” mission specialist Jeremy Hansen said during NASA’s livestream. “Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie.”

Hansen described a crater that’s “a bright spot on the Moon,” and announced, “We would like to call it Carroll.” As Hansen concluded the announcement, the crew gathered around in Integrity to share a hug. Carroll Wiseman was commander Reid Wiseman’s wife and passed away from cancer in 2020 at 46 years old.