Michael Adkison/Houston Public Media
The members of the Artemis II crew at a celebration at the University of Houston on Sept. 30, 2026.
Walking out on stage at the University of Houston’s Fertitta Center, the four astronauts of the Artemis II crew were welcomed back to Space City with screams and thunderous applause. The crew said they’re still struck by their newfound celebrity status.
The Artemis II crew, which embarked on their historic mission around the moon and back six months ago Thursday, has spent those six months on a tour across the country, touting the success of the mission. Their homecoming celebration in Houston caps that tour, and it was their first public event in Houston since the mission.
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“We’ve been back for six months,” Commander Reid Wiseman said, “but today, we are home.”
Wiseman also called the celebration “bittersweet.” The Houston ceremony was their final stop on a publicity tour that has taken them across the country.
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Michael Adkison/Houston Public Media
Artemis II’s Christina Koch holds Rise, a zero-gravity indicator stuffed animal that became an icon of the mission.
“We have been saying the word ‘Houston’ on the radios the entire mission,” mission specialist Christina Koch told reporters before the event. “And so, to actually come back here, it’s that full circle moment. All the travel that we’ve been doing for outreach, the most important of it has been meeting with our teams [that worked on Artemis II]. I’ve been calling it the ‘congratulations and gratitude tour’ because when we can finally say those two things to the people that were also fulfilling their roles on the mission, just like we were, that’s when it feels like we can say we’re back.”
As part of the celebration, each of the crew members — Wiseman, Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen — were awarded medals of Distinguished Service and Space Exploration from NASA. The lead flight directors and managers on the mission also received medals of recognition for their contributions to the mission.
The crew was also recognized by the National Aeronautic Association for breaking the record of furthest distance ever traveled by humans, surpassing the Apollo 13 record set in 1970. It’s a record the crew members have said they hope is broken quickly.
“First, break that record,” Wiseman told the next generation of space explorers, when asked for advice. “That’s step one. And step two is, I think, if you’re going to be a space explorer and you’re going to get on that rocket and you are going to ride that thing, and you are going to get on a [lunar] lander … you have to demand excellence every single day. You’ve got to ask questions, and they can be silly questions, but you’ve got to get questions going, get the team talking.”
Wednesday’s event carried a sense of finality for the crew members. As the final stop of the publicity tour, NASA is setting its sights on next year’s Artemis III mission. Three of the four crew members have announced retirement from spaceflight. Hansen is transitioning away from the Canadian Space Agency. Wiseman and Glover were named to NASA’s emeritus program, allowing them to mentor new astronauts while seeking work outside of NASA.
Michael Adkison/Houston Public Media
The members of the Artemis II crew at a celebration at the University of Houston on Sept. 30, 2026.
The mission itself, and the six months that followed, are still surreal to the crew members, they said. When asked if there was a moment they felt caught off guard by their newfound celebrity status the crew responded in near unison.
“The whole thing,” Glover said.
“All of it,” Wiseman added in unison.
“That’s all there was, actually,” Koch said with a laugh.