Artemis II science continues on Earth after crew returns

After the Artemis II crew safely splashed down in the Pacific on April 10, teams moved quickly to collect data that will help explain how the human body adapts from microgravity back to Earth’s gravity. Crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen completed a suite of measurements for the Spaceflight Standard Measures study and ran a mini obstacle course of tasks such as lying down, standing up, unfurling a rope ladder and climbing to assess motor control.

Once back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, they completed further medical exams and performed obstacle courses while wearing spacesuits offloaded to lunar gravity so researchers can analyze how crews may perform on a planetary surface. Researchers are comparing blood and saliva samples collected before flight, during the mission, and after splashdown as part of the Immune Biomarkers study, which looks in part at whether dormant viruses reactivate in space.

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