“This was a test mission, the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion, pushing farther into the unforgiving environment of space than ever before, and it carried real risk. They accepted that risk for all we stood to learn and for the exciting missions that follow, as we return to the lunar surface, build a Moon base, and prepare for what comes next.”

"We are now falling to the Moon rather than rising away from Earth. It is an amazing milestone!"

- Mission Specialist Christina Koch

"No matter how long we look at this, our brains are not processing this image in front of us. It is absolutely spectacular, surreal. I know there’s no adjectives. I’m going to need to invent some new ones to describe what we are looking at out this window."

- Commander Reid Wiseman

"Copy, moon joy." - Jacki Mahaffey, NASA Mission Control CAPCOM

“Trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful. And from up here you also look like one thing. Homosapiens is all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like. We're all one people".

- Pilot Victor Glover

“A number of years ago, we started this journey in our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one ... her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,” Hansen radioed, his voice breaking. “It’s a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carroll.”

"We look like we're smiling at you.....like a little Cheshire cat."

- Jacki Mahaffey, NASA Mission Control CAPCOM

"10 seconds till entry interface...."

"And we have crossed the threshold; now entering the Earth's atmosphere. We're at 400,000 feet, traveling at 34,800 feet per second. Time to splashdown, 13 minutes 10 seconds."

- Rob Navias, NASA Mission Commentator

"On behalf of NASA and space-loving people across the world, thank you for taking us with you to the moon. Thanks for your courage, all your beautiful words that we've heard. You represent the absolute best of us. We are proud of you, and we look forward to welcoming you back safely to the good Earth very soon. Godspeed and go Artemis II."

- Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator

"A perfect bull's eye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts."

- Rob Navias, NASA Mission Commentator

At their closest, the crew members flew within 4,067 miles of the moon's surface. The astronauts viewed never-before-seen parts of the moon’s surface: areas on the far side that aren’t visible from Earth. Even the Apollo astronauts couldn’t view the moon’s far side in this way because of the paths and timing of their flights. At their farthest point from Earth, the astronauts were more than 252,000 miles away. They broke the Apollo 13 record for the greatest distance any humans have traveled from our planet.

"These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now, and I can't imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew, that just completed a perfect mission."

- Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator