THERE AND BACK AGAIN

 The Atremis II mission successfully returned in the early hours of this morning and thanks to the wonderful world of live streaming, I was able to watch as the capsule approached Earth, was captured by its gravity and drawn home at Mach 33. Watching the globe draw ever closer, it was impossible to gauge the terrific speed that the capsule was moving at and it was only after it re-entered the atmosphere and began its freefall down to the Pacific Ocean, was it possible to see its velocity.

The proliferation of cameras on board the spacecraft, including GoPro's on the solar panels, ensured that live imagery was available at almost all points during the mission. When the Integrity capsule was traversing the far side of the moon, it was possible to see the crew inside the capsule as well as some of the views they were experiencing themselves.

Inside the capsule, the crew used Nikon Z9 cameras, to photograph the lunar landscape, but also recorded commentary of naked eye observations, such as the fall of micrometeorites at the terminator. The crews descriptions of the lunar surface, including the albedo and colouration of the lunar soil, was detailed and evocative, with greens and browns being visible in some of the newer craters.

Almost all the in flight videos and stills show the crew as happy and having a thoroughly great time on the mission, as can be seen in the selfie shot of Christina Koch in the cabin window. As the capsule crossed the lunar farside, mission Commander Reid Wiseman requested that an unnamed crater be recognised as 'Carroll', after his late wife and a second crater, 'Integrity' after the capsule itself.

It will be fascinating to see all the recorded imagery from the mission, now that the crew are safely returned, although NASA has shared a few choice shots during the mission, such as images of the far side and the Orientale Basin, which has never been seen by the human eye before.

It is fascinating to see the comparison of the camera shots with an informal iphone shot through the cabin window of the lunar surface, which shows a much browner colouration to the moon, more in keeping with the verbal descriptions given by the crew.

The crew also managed to provide some absolutely priceless free publicity for camera manufacturer Nikon, Apple iphones and during a live cast with the Canadian President, an inadvertent product placement - front and centre - of Nutella Hazelnut Spread! During the transmission with Earth, a dislodged jar of the spread floated blithely across the screen, much to the amusement of everyone, including the premier, who commented that he hoped the crew would be using maple syrup on their pancakes instead!

Some of the most ethereal and beautiful shots came during the lunar flyby, as the Moon eclipsed the Sun and was surrounded by a ghostly corona for a few minutes, as the capsule traversed the far side.

Once more, a shot of the crew - presumably by iphone again, wearing eclipse glasses, shows them to be having a great time and almost lends an air of frivolity to what was one of the most dangerous and extreme space missions ever completed.

Following return to Earth orbit and capsule separation from the Service Module - once more, visible in real time - the speed of the vehicle could be appreciated more fully, as the globe of Earth began spin faster beneath the craft, before the re-entry of the atmosphere interfered with communications and an anxious few minutes went by as the capsule returned.

Appearing in the upper atmosphere, cameras were able to clearly capture the descent, as the capsule was in freefall, both in infra red and normal colour, before drogue chutes were deployed to slow the descent from over 25,000 miles per hour.

As speed dropped from the hypersonic, pilot chutes took over and assisted the release of the three main parachutes. At 10,000 feet, and approaching subsonic speed, they began to unfurl and checked the nail-biting descent, so the capsule eventually hit the ocean at a steady 20 mph.

After some anxious waiting for the capsule to settle and perform safety checks before being powered down, the recovery crew were able to make contact with the crew and move in to begin retrieval.

All four crew were rescued and returned to a waiting carrier by helicopter, to be checked over.

NASA has set a date of 2028 for the Artemis 3 mission, which is intended to land a crew on the lunar surface, I sincerely hope the unqualified success of an apparently textbook mission, will spur them on to meet this historic deadline. Godspeed NASA!