During their record-breaking journey around the moon, the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission has suggested names for two previously unnamed lunar craters, including a touching tribute to the late wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman.
The crew of the crewed Artemis II mission, which set a new record for the farthest human flight from earth while orbiting the moon, have put forward names for two previously unnamed craters. One could be called Carroll, in memory of Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, NASA reports.
Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who worked as a neonatal intensive care nurse, passed away from cancer in 2020. Reid Wiseman has said he was ready to give up his dream of becoming an astronaut when his wife was diagnosed, but she encouraged him to persevere.
The second crater is proposed to be named Integrity Integrity, after their spacecraft and the historic mission itself. It lies to the north-west of the Orientale Basin on the moon’s far side. Carroll is situated to the north-east, on the boundary between the near and far sides of the moon. After the mission concludes, the naming proposals will be submitted to the International Astronomical Union, the official authority for celestial names.
Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen observed the lunar surface on the night of April 7. Flying over the moon’s far side, the crew photographed and described surface features, including craters, lava flows, fractures, and ridges. During the mission, they travelled more than 406,000 kilometres from earth, setting a new record for human distance in space.
Having completed their lunar flyby, the crew is now returning home. The return journey will take approximately four days, with the Orion spacecraft scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on the night of April 11.
