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Watch: NASA astronaut’s dog ‘over the moon’ for her return from lunar mission
Updated: 5:29 PM CDT Apr 14, 2026
It seems like a 10-day Artemis II mission was pretty ruff on astronaut Christina Koch’s dog.Koch, one of four astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II lunar flyby mission, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean Friday night. The nation cheered their return. But for Koch, perhaps her biggest welcome home greeting came from her dog, Sadie.”I’m still pretty sure I was the happier side of this reunion. Sadie taught me everything I needed to know about being an emotional support animal. Didn’t expect that would come in handy,” Koch wrote on her social media pages, sharing video of her reunion with her beloved dog.In the video, Sadie can be seen jumping and barking for joy as she sees Koch, running back and forth across the room — her tail frantically wagging. During Artemis II’s nearly 10-day mission, the astronauts voyaged deeper into space than the moon explorers of decades past and captured views of the lunar far side never witnessed before by human eyes.On their record-breaking flyby, the astronauts reached a maximum 252,756 miles from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon.Koch was a mission specialist for Artemis II, alongside commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and fellow mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.
It seems like a 10-day Artemis II mission was pretty ruff on astronaut Christina Koch’s dog.
Koch, one of four astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II lunar flyby mission, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean Friday night.
The nation cheered their return. But for Koch, perhaps her biggest welcome home greeting came from her dog, Sadie.
“I’m still pretty sure I was the happier side of this reunion. Sadie taught me everything I needed to know about being an emotional support animal. Didn’t expect that would come in handy,” Koch wrote on her social media pages, sharing video of her reunion with her beloved dog.
In the video, Sadie can be seen jumping and barking for joy as she sees Koch, running back and forth across the room — her tail frantically wagging.
During Artemis II’s nearly 10-day mission, the astronauts voyaged deeper into space than the moon explorers of decades past and captured views of the lunar far side never witnessed before by human eyes.
On their record-breaking flyby, the astronauts reached a maximum 252,756 miles from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon.
Koch was a mission specialist for Artemis II, alongside commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and fellow mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.