New Moon Craters Identified | NASA Artemis II Mission

New Moon Craters Identified | NASA Artemis II Mission

The Artemis II crew described two small, unnamed craters on the heavily pockmarked lunar surface. Calling down to Earth, they suggested provisional names for them. Just northwest of Orientale basin, highlighted above, is a crater they would like to name Integrity after their spacecraft and this historic mission. Just northeast of the Integrity crater, on the near and far side boundary, and sometimes visible from Earth, the crew suggested an unnamed crater be designated "Carroll" in honor of Reid Weisman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. She passed away on May 17, 2020. After this mission is complete, the crater name proposals will be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organization that governs the naming of celestial bodies and their surface features.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist onboard launched on the Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA’s Artemis II Mission is taking Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard their Orion spacecraft.

Track NASA’s Artemis II Mission in real time:
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

Check the Artemis blog for updates: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center
Release Date: April 6, 2026

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