I’ve been watching some of the crew videos from the mission. The Red Cross on the locker indicates where the med kit is stowed. The med kit was originally supposed to be in the cabin & readily accessible in an emergency. The team had challenges fitting within their mass & volume constraints.

I’ve spent my entire career working in collaboration with people around the world exploring space. Whether it’s been the Japanese, Europeans, Russians, or others, we’re all just people who’ve shared common goals & dreams. Time after time, we prove we can always achieve more working together.

Artemis II tea set 🌓 #SciArt

The spacecraft will ultimately be shipped back to KSC to remove parts but we’re pulling off some high priority/time critical items like payloads and data recorders.

Gotta go with my favorite mission photos for this #stunday

Please to report that we collected another data point yesterday and this still holds true.

Best illustration of how much time I’ve spent working on this program.

My favorite question from the post splashdown press conference was the one to Howard about how it compared to his love of Star Wars. I’m just gonna say that went to the wrong person.

Man, we went people to the damn Moon and brought them back safely. Holy crap.

I’ve been at Johnson Space Center for 27 years now, started in April ‘99. First assignment was as a late fill-in on the ISS Expedition 1 training team covering life support systems; now for Artemis II, I helped send people to the Moon for the first time since before I was born.

Lot so hugs and handshakes tonight with so many friends and colleagues that have put everything they’ve had into this. I’m proud to be part of this team.

LOL, trying to stay offline and do my work, and friends are sending me "LOOK AT THIS NEW PIC!" texts .... This one is worth it. First PoC and first woman to go around another world. Don't stop talking about this point. It's important. #ArtemisII

NASA's Barbara Cohen created this image of the Moon's Pierazzo crater, named after our late PSI colleague Betty Pierazzo. Betty was an expert in impact modeling and the astrobiological and environmental effects of impacts. She also passionately supported students and other teachers.

‘Til next time.

Just a reminder that we can fund science, and save the earth, and feed everyone, and have health care and housing too. All those things are within our reach, together.

I’ve never put more effort into anything in my life.

Some postflight mementos

We did it.

Couldn’t resist. Helluva view right now.

Going with the Kelly green today. For luck.

Really appreciate all the support. Gonna be a great day!

This will be my last shift for the mission. Shift starts when the spacecraft hits the water and ends when it’s hard down in the well deck of the Navy ship that will bring Integrity back to shore.

1 to go

2 shifts to go. Tonight I’ll go with Weezer’s A Little Bit of Love. The work is too hard, the stakes too high to stick with if you don’t love it a little. Got knocked down plenty of times on this journey, but you pick up & keep going. A little bit of love goes a pretty long way.

NASA plays music to wake up the Artemis II astronauts & have released the songs the crew picked out, and I am delighted to see Pink Pony Club and Bohemian Rhapsody made the cut. Also, how weird must it be to wake up on the far side of the Moon, going 40,000 km/hr?

This might be one of my favorites from Artemis II. A cinematic alignment of the Moon and Earth, each cradled within the warmth of sunbeams. Taken from behind the Moon on April 6th. flic.kr/p/2s6BABn

For all the “spaceflight is normal” folks, a reminder that this is only the SEVENTH vehicle NASA has ever tested with humans (two of which were SpaceX and Boeing) and the second coming in from the moon. It’s not normal or routine at all. This is a test flight, which is inherently risky.

There's something utterly fantastic about the WB-57 footage of launches, like the one we just got for Artemis II, and I clipped it just after SRB separation.

Nearly 58 years later and Earth is still just as beautiful.

Could Orion come down in the wrong location and what would the crew do then? 2 most plausible scenarios that would affect landing location would be a late report of bad weather at the landing site that would make it too risky to pick up the crew or a malfunction that puts us in ballistic mode.

IMPORTANT ARTEMIS II HOT SAUCE UPDATE Thanks to Carlie Kollath Wells’ reporting out of Axios New Orleans (which I confirmed via email since there are two versions of the article out) …. WE HAVE OUR LIST. It’s these 4 pictured, plus Heinz Hot Taco Sauce! www.axios.com/local/new-or...

PROOF. God bless my country, Philadelphia.

What’s the plan for the spacecraft after the mission? We want to re-use as much of it as possible. We won’t re-use the pressure vessel, but we will re-use components. Since this is the first flight of the completed vehicle, we have to analyze how well it held up to the mission.

The name of the specialty discipline that predicts and analyzes the large footprint for pieces of Orion lost & jettisoned during entry and descent - Sasquatch

"I think we as a species need largely symbolic and inspirational projects like this from time to time, to keep us sane and optimistic and in touch with our humanity." defector.com/artemis-moon...

One of the key discriminators to the sequence of events that occurs after splashdown is whether Orion lands right-side up (stable 1) or upside down (stable 2). Drawing is from this paper: https://airborne-sys.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/aiaa-2011-2591-simulation_of_the_apollo_.pdf

Starting tomorrow, we start reconfiguring the cabin for entry. Entry config will look a lot like launch with a few key differences. Goals: Make sure we’re within the needed center of gravity to hit the way at the right angle. Allow the crew to remain seated & suited during recovery.

Our Outreach folks put out a whole bunch of mission I ages as mobile wallpapers. https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-ii-mobile-wallpapers/

Nice to have a day off before I get into entry prep. Not sure I’ve ever slept harder in my life than I did last night.

My console responsibilities are now done until we get to entry prep. I’m the MER lead for crew and vehicle recovery. I’ll review the cabin config for that when my brain is a little less mushy.

This shot just blows my mind. https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009573/art002e009573~large.jpg

Our expectation I that you would only become a werewolf only when in view of the full Moon. We use a combination of mitigations - limiting launch opportunities to days when we’ll approach from the side, window shades when & special sunglasses during transit.

Basking in PSA production value only NASA can provide.

The song for tonight’s shift - Tom Patty’s Runnin’ Down a Dream. It was a beautiful day…

I want to give just the biggest kudos to Kelsey Young, the Artemis II science officer. She did a phenomenal job today of communicating clearly and joyously and it was honestly orders of magnitude more distracting than I thought it would be to have on.

"Welcome to my old neighborhood." Jim Lovell Source: NASA TV. #ArtemisII

Going to admit that when I first studied the timeline for a 4/1 launch that it took a few minutes to wrap my brain around us losing comm, but being in sunlight, then having comm & being in eclipse. It’s been a while since I;d thought about the orbital mechanics of how all this works.

"It’s a bright spot on the moon,” CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen said, his voice breaking up, “and we would like to call it Carroll.” The crew all shared a hug after. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/s...

The Artemis II mission seems good because it is. People seem excited by it because they are. It looks like a testament to the value of teamwork because it needs many people working together to succeed, and it’s succeeding. One of the best things about this is how straightforward it is. Authentic.

This has been a worldwide test of object permanence.