{"id":59716,"date":"2026-04-10T20:45:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/?p=59716"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:40:02","slug":"artemis-ii-lunar-crater-carroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/artemis-ii-lunar-crater-carroll\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II Crew Nears Earth After Lunar Crater Dedication"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"background: #f7fafc; padding: 15px;\">\n<p><strong>Quick Read<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Artemis II crew is nearing Earth after a historic lunar fly-around mission.<\/li>\n<li>Astronauts requested to name a lunar crater after the late wife of Commander Reid Wiseman, Carroll.<\/li>\n<li>The International Astronomical Union is reviewing the naming request, which follows a long-standing Apollo-era tradition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>HOUSTON (Azat TV) \u2013 The Artemis II crew is currently hurtling toward Earth, 178,000 miles from home, as they finalize a mission defined as much by its human vulnerability as its technical precision. Ahead of their scheduled splashdown, the four astronauts have etched a permanent, poignant tribute into the lunar landscape by requesting that two newly identified craters be named for their spacecraft, Integrity, and for the late wife of Commander Reid Wiseman, Carroll.<\/p>\n<h2>A Legacy Written on the Lunar Surface<\/h2>\n<p>The naming request, initiated by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen during the crew\u2019s lunar fly-around, serves as a modern echo of the Apollo era. Carroll Wiseman, a neonatal nurse who passed away in 2020, is now the namesake of a shallow, five-kilometer-wide crater located near the boundary of the Moon&#8217;s near and far sides. <em>The Hitavada<\/em> reports that the request left ground controllers at the Johnson Space Center momentarily silent, marking a departure from the stoic, business-only atmosphere that characterized the moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n<h2>The Intersection of Exploration and Grief<\/h2>\n<p>For Commander Wiseman, the tribute was the emotional peak of the mission. The crew, who had discussed the idea while in pre-launch quarantine, observed the crater through zoom lenses and the naked eye as they broke deep-space distance records. The moment was marked by a group embrace and visible emotion, highlighting a shift in how modern space agencies approach the psychological weight of long-duration exploration. NASA lunar scientist Ryan Watkins noted that the scene provided a rare, humanizing glimpse into the lives of those who venture into the vacuum of space.<\/p>\n<h2>Formalizing the Lunar Names<\/h2>\n<p>While the designation of &#8220;Carroll Crater&#8221; and &#8220;Integrity Crater&#8221; remains unofficial until the International Astronomical Union completes its review, the process is expected to move quickly. The union typically approves such requests within a month, adding these sites to the 81 existing astronaut-named lunar features. This tradition, which includes historical markers like &#8220;Mount Marilyn&#8221; from the Apollo 8 mission, underscores the enduring human impulse to connect the alien terrain of the Moon with the people and experiences left behind on Earth.<\/p>\n<p><em>The emotional transparency displayed by the Artemis II crew during this mission signals a profound shift in the culture of space exploration, suggesting that as humanity pushes further into deep space, the integration of personal, human history is becoming as vital to the mission&#8217;s success as the engineering that makes it possible.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The crew of Artemis II requested naming lunar craters, including one for Carroll, Commander Wiseman&#8217;s late wife, as they return from their mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow5Nm1DA:productID":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[42375,14672,3447,4523],"class_list":["post-59716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-artemis-ii","tag-lunar-mission","tag-nasa","tag-space-exploration"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Artemis.jpg","_embedded":{"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":-1,"source_url":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Artemis.jpg","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azat.tv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}