The NASA flight is hours away from parachuting into the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, concluding a journey that sent humans around the moon for the first time since 1972.

The tendrils of Christina Koch’s flyaway hair swirled about in the gravityless cockpit of the Orion spacecraft, seeming to represent all of the untetheredness of the Artemis II mission. As her mane eddied,

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 2nd person to walk on the moon, watched NASA Artemis II launch from Kennedy Space Center from his home in California.

The NASA-led Artemis II mission, carrying a four-person crew beyond Earth orbit for the first time since 1972, conducted a seven-hour flyby of the moon.

Discover the stories of the 12 astronauts who walked on the Moon, from Neil Armstrong's first steps to the final mission of Apollo 17.

The countdown to the moon doesn’t start on a launchpad. For the team at Axiom Space in Houston, it starts years before, at a workbench, stitch by stitch.