After travelling deeper into space than any other humans, the Artemis II astronauts pointed their moonship toward home on Monday (April 6, 2026) night, wrapping up a lunar cruise that revealed views of the far side never beheld by eyes until now.

They even flew around the moon, taking a bit of celestial sightseeing on their journey, in addition to providing plentiful science, a big milestone towards landing the footprints of boots near the south pole of the moon in only two years.

The three Americans and one Canadian were greeted by a total solar eclipse as the moon blocked the sun from their view on a temporary basis. Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn bobbed their heads out of the black nothingness. The landing sites of Apollo 12 and 14 were also visible, poignant reminders of NASA’s first age of exploration more than half a century ago.

In one particularly thrilling retro throwback, Artemis II beat the distance record of Apollo 13 in 1970. The Orion capsule NASA launched flew 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometres) above Earth at its highest point, before making a U-turn behind the moon, 4,101 miles (6,600 kilometres) above Apollo 13.

“What you can see with the naked eye on the moon now is blowing my mind. It is unbelievable, it is unbelievable,” radioed Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. He confronted this generation and the next to ensure that this record did not live long.

In a tape recorded two months before his death last August, Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell sent good wishes to the crew. His message was sent to Mission Control, who relayed it to Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen, who were then sent off on a fly-around.

“Welcome to my old neighbourhood,” said Lovell, who is a member of both the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 trips to the moon, the first and second visits by humans. “It is a historical day, and I expect that you will be busy; however, do not forget to see the view.”

The Artemis II astronauts did bring aboard with them the Apollo 8 silk patch, which went with Lovell to the moon. “Those are some real honours to have aboard with us,” Wiseman said.

Artemis II is repeating the same manoeuvre Apollo 13 did when its oxygen tank exploded, destroying any chance of landing on the moon.

This no-stopping-to-land path, or better known as a free-return lunar trajectory, exploits the gravity of both the Earth and the moon, thus consuming less fuel. It is a heavenly figure-eight that steered the astronauts towards home when they appeared behind the moon Monday evening.

The lunar fly-around and intensive observation period of Artemis II took seven hours, by far the highlight of the almost 10-day test flight, which is to conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday.

Going up to just 4,067 miles (6,545 kilometres) to the grey dusty surface, the astronauts flew down the list of over a dozen targets, with powerful Nikon cameras and even their iPhones zooming to get a closer look at impact craters and other interesting lunar features.

Before starting, they asked leave to name two of the freshly hewn craters, bright. They suggested Integrity, the name of their capsule, and Carroll, Commander Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

Wiseman cried when Hansen submitted the request to Mission Control, and all four astronauts embraced each other.

“What a grand sight out here, ” radioed Wiseman when he got himself back to his senses and began picture-taking. The astronauts radioed to say that they had been able to get the moon and Earth in the same frame, and they radioed a running commentary to scientists in Houston on what they were observing.

At one time, Koch claimed to have experienced the feeling of overwhelming emotion for up to two seconds during the zooming in of the moon. “Something suddenly attracted me to the lunar landscape, and it was real,” she said.

The astronauts on the Artemis II mission had the closest encounter with the moon when they were out of radio contact, and the farthest distance they were from Earth. Their maximum speed in closest approach: 3,139 mph (5,052 kph). The spacecraft gained speed as it emerged from behind the moon, entered the scheduled communications blackout and left Earth.

An Earthrise appeared in Asia, Africa and Oceania, with Mission Control calling out: “We are Earthbound and are about to take you home. Flight controllers in Houston flipped their mission patches over to signify the return leg.”

Wiseman and his crew had spent years learning the geography of the moon to get ready to do the big event, and in the last few weeks, they added solar eclipses to their repertoire. They planned to launch last Wednesday so that they would be guaranteed a total solar eclipse in their position behind the moon, thanks to the cosmos.

First on their science target list: Orientale Basin, a large impact basin that has three concentric rings, the outer one of which is approximately 600 miles (950 kilometres) wide.

Their moon guide, NASA geologist Kelsey Young, anticipates thousands of photos.

It is the first NASA astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972. It preconditions the next year Artemis III, during which another crew of Orion will train for docking to lunar landers orbiting Earth. The climax of the moon landing of two astronauts close to the south pole of the moon will be the next Artemis IV, which will occur in 2028.

While Artemis II may be taking Apollo 13’s path, it’s most reminiscent of Apollo 8 and humanity’s first lunar visitors who orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968 and read from the Book of Genesis.

Glover said flying to the moon during Christianity’s Holy Week brought home for him “the beauty of creation.” Earth is an oasis amid “a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe”, where humanity exists as one, he observed over the weekend.

“It is a time to keep in mind where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing and that we have to get through this together,” said Glover, holding hands with his crewmates.