Astronauts aboard Artemis II have described the emotional toll of their historic journey as they prepare for a high-risk “fireball” re-entry. The crew is set to splash down off California on Friday (10 April) after travelling farther than any humans in history.
During their return, the spacecraft is expected to reach speeds of nearly 24,000 miles per hour as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. This phase will serve as a critical test of Orion’s heat shield under extreme temperatures and friction.
The Artemis II crew consists of four astronauts: NASA’s Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (pilot), Christina Koch (mission specialist), and CSA’s Jeremy Hansen (mission specialist).
The spacecraft reached a distance of approximately 405,555 kilometres (about 252,000 miles) from Earth, surpassing the record held by Apollo 13 for more than five decades. Their trajectory took them beyond the Moon’s far side, offering a rare vantage point and making them the farthest-travelling humans in history.
The mission marks a key step in NASA’s Artemis programme, a multibillion-dollar effort to return humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.
“We plan to hand [the baton] to the next crew, and every single thing that we do is with them in mind,” astronaut Christina Koch said, describing the programme.
Future missions aim to test docking systems, land astronauts on the lunar surface, and ultimately establish a sustained human presence. This is seen as a stepping stone for future missions to Mars and part of a broader space race with China.
Beyond its technical achievements, the mission has also carried emotional significance. Crew members spoke of brief but powerful conversations with their families, describing moments of laughter and tears during communications from deep space.
In one poignant moment, Jeremy Hansen proposed naming a lunar crater after Reid Wiseman’s late wife, drawing emotional reactions both aboard the spacecraft and among mission control staff in Houston.
Meanwhile, scientists on Earth have been closely analysing real-time observations from the crew’s lunar flyby.
The mission will culminate in a splashdown off the coast of San Diego, marking the end of a journey that scientists see as a crucial step towards unlocking mysteries about the solar system’s formation.
As the crew prepare for re-entry, all eyes remain on the spacecraft’s performance during one of the most dangerous phases of space travel.
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Former security chief Kamchybek Tashiev has been questioned in connection with an alleged attempt to seize power by force, Kyrgyz lawyer Sherdor Abdykaparov said.
Afghan and Russian officials have discussed expanding political, economic and security cooperation during talks in Kabul, Afghan ministries said.
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President Donald Trump said on Sunday Iran could telephone if it wants to negotiate an end to their two-month war. Tehran said the U.S. should remove obstacles to a deal, including its blockade of Iran's ports. Meanwhile Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrives in St Petersburg for talks.
Tensions between the United States and Iran remain high after a U.S. official said President Donald Trump was unhappy with a proposal from Tehran that does not deal with its nuclear programme. Washington is insisting that any talks must address Iran’s nuclear activities.
A Pentagon official provided the first official estimate of the cost of the U.S. war in Iran on Wednesday (29 April), telling lawmakers that $25 billion had so far been spent on the conflict, most of it on munitions. Earlier, Donald Trump said that the U.S. had "militarily defeated" Tehran.
The death toll from a train collision near Indonesia’s capital Jakarta rose to 14 women on Tuesday (28 April), with 84 people injured, after rescuers completed efforts to free passengers trapped in the wreckage, the state rail operator said.
Mexican special forces arrested Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, a senior commander of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), during an operation in the western state of Nayarit, Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said on Monday (27 April).
Elon Musk took the stand on Tuesday (28 April) at a high-stakes trial over the future of OpenAI, casting his lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker as a defence of charitable giving.
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Market reaction to DeepSeek’s preview of its next-generation artificial intelligence model has been relatively subdued, in sharp contrast to the global shock triggered by its breakthrough releases last year.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said it's installing software on its employees computers to capture keystrokes and mouse movements to use to train its artificial intelligence (AI) agent models.
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker XPeng says it expects to begin delivering its flying cars in 2027, as the company pushes ahead with plans to bring futuristic transport closer to everyday use.
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