Now that the Artemis II astronauts are safely home from their moon mission, NASA is investigating how well its spacecraft's heat shield protected the crew during their return.

Workers at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans are celebrating the successful return of Artemis II while preparing major hardware for the next moon mission.

Inside mission control, each desk, or console, is labeled with a neon blue sign and its officers handle a subsystem on the spacecraft carrying the Artemis II crew. This station is the nucleus of the operation. It’s where the flight director makes real-time decisions for mission execution, and where troubleshooting occurs.

Rogers High School graduate Ryan Ewing is playing a key role in planning science and surface operations for Artemis missions.

With the Artemis II crew members back home in Houston following their historic journey to the moon, NASA is already preparing for its next mission in the Artemis program, launching as soon as next year.

Rise joined the Artemis 2 crew as a mascot of the moon, bearing 5.6 million names. But the mascot quickly took on a new meaning.

NASA targets the moon's south pole for a future base as Artemis III prepares to test critical docking maneuvers in Earth's orbit launching next year.

From Trump to Elon Musk and now former U.S. President Barack Obama, everyone is stunned by NASA's Artemis II crew's breathtaking performance, marking their historic lunar flyby as a remarkable achievement and act of bravery.