Hurtling back toward Earth after a historic loop around the moon, the Artemis II astronauts worked through a relatively light day in space Wednesday, wrapping up a few final tests before packing up for reentry and splashdown Friday.
Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen planned to hold a news conference late Wednesday, answering reporters’ questions about the flight, the first piloted trip around the moon in more than a half century.
The crew had planned to take another turn at manually piloting their Orion capsule, testing their ability, as pilots and non-pilots, to precisely maneuver the spacecraft. NASA is considering opening up commander and pilot positions to a wider range of astronauts.
NASA
But Wednesday’s test, the second to involve all four crew members, was called off to give flight controllers time to troubleshoot an oxygen pressurization issue in the crew ship’s service module that cropped up shortly after launch.
Otherwise, the ground team reviewed the re-entry timeline and Navy recovery crews headed to the splashdown site off the southern California coast near San Diego where the Orion capsule is expected to splash down at 8:07 p.m. EDT Friday. Favorable weather is expected with light winds and moderate seas.
NASA 
Back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, scientists continued poring over thousands of photographs captured by the astronauts as they passed over the far side of the moon Monday, along with video and recorded audio descriptions of various high-priority targets.
Nine three-man Apollo crews flew over the moon’s far side between 1968 and 1972, but those flights were launched when the near side was fully illuminated and the far side was in shadow.
The Artemis II astronauts were the first humans to see, with their own eyes, large swaths of the far side in daylight, giving researchers insights that could lead to a better understanding of the moon’s evolution.
NASA/edited CBS News to bring out detail 
So far, NASA’s first piloted moon mission since the final Apollo landing in 1972 has gone off like clockwork with only a small number of anomalies. One of those involved the ship’s toilet, which has had problems dumping liquid waste overboard as required.
While an annoyance at times for the crew, it’s been a relatively minor issue given the technical challenges of safely flying to the moon and back.
NASA 
