“I’m still pretty sure I was the happier side of this reunion,” Koch said.
NASA astronaut and her dog reunite after Artemis II mission
NASA astronaut Christina Koch received a very warm welcome from her dog, Sadie, after returning home from the Artemis II mission.
The world excitedly watched and welcomed the Artemis II crew after they returned from their record-breaking lunar flyby on April 10. Still, no one was happier to see Mission Specialist Christina Koch than her dog, Sadie.
Video footage shared by Koch on Instagram shows the pooch excitedly barking and wagging her tail as she watched her mom walk to the door from the window. When the door finally opened, and Sadie saw Koch, she immediately jumped on her before running back into the house to grab her toy.
In another video, the two can be seen running on a beach in a heartwarming moment.
“I’m still pretty sure I was the happier side of this reunion,” Koch wrote in her post. “Sadie taught me everything I needed to know about being an emotional support animal. Didn’t expect that would come in handy.”
Watch astronaut Christina Koch reunite with her dog Sadie
Historic Artemis II mission
Koch and her fellow Artemis II crewmembers − Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen − embarked on their 10-day journey to the moon on April 1, safely splashing back down on Earth on April 10.
The Artemis II expedition traveled near the far side of the moon, reaching a maximum distance of 252,756 miles from Earth, and surpassing the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970 by over 4,000 miles. The crew, who were the first humans in more than 50 years to travel near Earth’s celestial neighbor, also became the first humans to see parts of the far side of the moon with the naked eye.
Three of those astronauts – Koch, Glover, and Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency – also made spaceflight as the first woman, first Black man and first Canadian to ever venture within the vicinity of the moon.
After arriving back on Earth, the four astronauts were taken to the Murtha via HSC-23 helicopter, where they underwent medical evaluations before helicopters transported them back to shore.
Once they arrived in Houston, the crew was reunited with family members, Artemis II Flight Director Rick Henfling said during a news conference on April 10.
Koch shares mission experience
The next day, on April 11, the crew made their way back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they shared stories from the mission during a welcome event.
Koch, during the NASA event, said the mission helped define “what makes a crew [and] what is different about a crew than a team.”
A crew, she said, “is willing to sacrifice… gives grace, that holds [each other] accountable. A crew has the same cares and the same needs and a crew is inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked.”
So, when the Artemis II crew could see “tiny Earth” from space and were asked what their impressions were: “Honestly, what struck me wasn’t necessarily just Earth, it was all the blackness around it,” Koch said. “Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe.”
She added, “I may have not learned … everything this journey has yet to teach me, but there’s one new thing I know and that is: Planet Earth, you are a crew.”
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, Mike Snider / USA TODAY
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
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