![\"Nasa\u00b4s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1409221_7403422_Arte_akhbar.jpg\")
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Nasa\u00b4s 322-foot-tall Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft stand on Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Centre on March 31, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, United States: A week after astronaut Jeremy Hansen blasted off on the historic Artemis II mission to the Moon, his wife Catherine recalled the anxiety and thrill of witnessing the journey from afar.<\/p>\n
The Canadian obstetrician-gynecologist told AFP that she has closely followed the mission carrying her husband among a crew of four, hanging onto every update during family phone calls and from Nasa mission control.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u00b4s incredible to me to know that they were up close,\u201d said Catherine, wearing rocket-shaped earrings during a video call.<\/p>\n
Lifting off from Florida, Hansen became the first non-American to journey toward the Moon as the crew reached a record-breaking distance of 400,000-kms from Earth.<\/p>\n
Catherine and her children followed the lunar flyby from Nasa mission control in Houston on Monday, and later heard Hansen share his observations in a family call.<\/p>\n
\u201cJeremy was describing… the fact that it looks so three-dimensional, like this globe outside the window,\u201d recalled his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe certainly will continue to describe to us and everyone else what it felt like to be that close to that celestial body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catherine said, before liftoff, her husband gave her a pair of powerful binoculars to follow the space voyage.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur family would lie down and look at various places on the Moon that he would identify based on his mapping and his study guides,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Some of those sites were later observed up close by the Artemis II crew.<\/p>\n
As the astronauts flew on the far side of the Moon, they lost connection with Earth for some 40 minutes during an expected communications blackout.<\/p>\n
That was the moment Catherine got especially anxious. \u201cI wanted to be there for that, because as someone who has never flown in space, I wanted to make sure they actually reacquired signal.\u201d<\/p>\n
As onlookers held their breath, she was surprised by the \u201cenergy in mission control.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no stress or anxiety. Everyone just trusted that this is what\u00b4s going to happen: they\u00b4re going to lose signal and come back again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a very emotional week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catherine and their three children also recorded videos that Jeremy was able to watch near the Moon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u00b4re out in deep space by the Moon, and you are listening to a video they recorded for you before you launch. That\u00b4s something,\u201d the Canadian astronaut told a press conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nasa\u00b4s 322-foot-tall Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft stand on Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-372567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}