Artemis II Crew Makes Long-Distance Call to International Space Station
Key summary
Artemis II astronauts completed the first-ever radio linkup between a moonship and the International Space Station.
The conversation took place while Artemis II was hundreds of thousands of miles away, heading home from the moon.
Mission Control arranged the call; Artemis II is commanded by Reid Wiseman, with Christina Koch aboard and Jessica Meir on the ISS.
Koch and Meir, who performed the 2019 all‑female spacewalk together, exchanged messages—Koch hoped to meet again and Meir said they were a few miles apart.
Artemis II beamed back more than 50 gigabytes of pictures and data from a record‑setting lunar rendezvous, including an Earthset photo; analyses and science lessons are ongoing, and crews reported pinpricks of light from impacts on the lunar surface.