{"id":588246,"date":"2026-04-07T15:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/588246\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:19:11","slug":"payoff-day-jenni-gibbons-on-watching-artemis-ii-crew-make-lunar-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/588246\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Payoff day\u2019: Jenni Gibbons on watching Artemis II crew make lunar history"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Artemis II<\/a> mission has at times left Jenni Gibbons feeling tense \u2014 and tired.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But the sometimes bated breath and fatigue aren\u2019t hindering the Calgary-born astronaut from taking in the historic mission from deep inside a NASA control room in Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m truly so tired,\u201d she told The Canadian Press late Monday. \u201cBut when I wake up, I think that there\u2019s no place I would want to be other than Mission Control and following Jeremy and my other colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, fellow Canadian Jeremy Hansen and his three American crewmates \u2014 Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch \u2014 looped the moon in a six-hour lunar flyby, going farther into space than any humans before, breaking a distance record set by Apollo 13.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a step toward landing boot prints near the moon\u2019s south pole in just two years.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

The mission is a highlight of NASA\u2019s first return to the moon since the Apollo flights of the 1960s and \u201970s, and Gibbons got a second-row seat after days, weeks, months and years of planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was the payoff day,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was an awesome experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:33
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGiant leap: Artemis II astronauts pass far side of moon, set distance record\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Gibbons was to fly in Hansen\u2019s place in the event he couldn\u2019t. Since last week\u2019s launch on April 1, she has been a voice link from Earth to space \u2014 coaching Hansen and the other astronauts on key mission objectives.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n

She said inside Mission Control, moments felt particularly tense in the lead-up to \u2014 and immediately after \u2014 the Orion capsule losing the radio signal as it travelled behind the moon, entering an expected communications blackout.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you want all the systems to work perfectly and sometimes it just takes a little while,\u201d Gibbons said. \u201cSo, we were lucky today.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple moments of tension, but overall super positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four-person crew were tasked with capturing images and other geological observations of the moon. They\u2019re now on their way home and are set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, California on Friday.<\/p>\n

Gibbons said she\u2019s eager to see images from the flyby and is particularly keen to see those of a total solar eclipse that the crew described as something out of \u201csci-fi.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Canada
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

She is also curious to see a pair of fresh moon craters \u2014 one named \u201cIntegrity,\u201d after the Orion spacecraft, and the other named for Wiseman\u2019s late wife, Carroll. The commander wept as Hansen put in the request to Mission Control.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Reid)\u2019s a really wonderful person who brings a lot of light, so hearing his family be honoured in that way was special,\u201d Gibbons said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:58
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow and why Artemis II\u2019s astronauts are taking their own cells around the moon\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Artemis mission is unique, she said. Those on board the capsule observed parts of the moon never before seen \u2014 something she noted remote robotic sensing just can\u2019t match.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

Findings from this mission will help shape the future of space exploration, she said.<\/p>\n

Gibbons said she would love her own trip to space \u201cwhen the time is right,\u201d but for now she is content with seeing Hansen through his.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has always felt like Jeremy\u2019s mission to me and he\u2019s a very dear friend,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI adore him and his family and seeing him live his dream has just been such a highlight for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Artemis II mission has at times left Jenni Gibbons feeling tense \u2014 and tired. But the sometimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[58777,49,48,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-588246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-artemis-ii","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}