I just really love how human this mission feels. Both the crew and the ground making fun jokes and references ("amaze, amaze, amaze!") or things like Glover saying "hello baby!" to his family back on Earth, or how "moon joy" has become the team's favorite phrase, or those craters being named "Integrity" and "Carroll," or the astronauts being encouraged to describe how seeing the moon makes them feel (and doing so to a moving degree), and also describing how much working and talking together improves their capabilities on all fronts, and both sides constantly telling each other how excited they are and that there's "smiles all around" Not that missions like Apollo never had stuff like this, but it's different hearing it all live. Wonderful experience all around.
With Artemis II just around the corner, it’s time to meet a very important member of the team.
Last year, the Moon Mascot design contest received thousands of submissions from over fifty countries for the zero gravity indicator for the Artemis II mission. This plush item serves a very important purpose — it indicates when the astronauts have reached space by floating around the spacecraft! The zero gravity indicator also reminds the astronauts of Earth when they are far from home.
Ultimately, the Artemis II astronauts selected “Rise,” designed by Lucas Ye of Mountain View, California, as the zero gravity indicator that will fly with the crew around the Moon. “Rise” was inspired by the iconic Earthrise moment from the Apollo 8 mission.
“Rise” has a little pouch that will contain the SD card with the names submitted to the Send Your Name with Artemis campaign — all 5.6 million of them!
The other top finalists included:
“Big Steps of Little Octopus,” Anzhelika Iudakova, Finland
“Lepus the Moon Rabbit,” Oakville Trafalgar School, Canada
“Creation Mythos,” Johanna Beck, McPherson, Kansas
“Corey the Explorer,” Daniela Colina, Peru
Artemis II is launching no earlier than April 1 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and will fly four astronauts — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen — around the Moon and back to Earth.
You can see “Rise” having a main character moment as the Artemis II astronauts flew to KSC to prepare for launch on Friday, March 27:
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