NASA's Artemis II Mission Completes Lunar Flyby, Returns Amid Conspiracy Theories

NASA's Artemis II mission, the first crewed flight under the Artemis program, launched last week and achieved a lunar flyby on Monday. The four astronauts—three Americans and one Canadian—traveled farther from Earth than any humans before, marking the first such journey since Apollo 17 in 1972. The mission serves as a key step toward future crewed lunar landings.

m. Eastern time as they orbited the far side of the Moon. During the flyby, they captured photographs of a setting Earth and a solar eclipse, which were released by NASA and the White House. The astronauts also named a Moon crater after Carroll, the late wife of crew member Reid Wiseman, who died in 2020.

The astronauts celebrated a quiet Easter ahead of the lunar flyby and received a message from Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen marked his first spaceflight during the mission. Families of the crew emphasized their involvement, noting that the mission begins at astronaut assignment. President Trump called the astronauts to praise their achievement, highlighting it as a step in plans for Moon and Mars missions initiated in his first term.

The crew shared emotional moments with mission control in Houston, spreading enthusiasm about the journey to the public.

“I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it.”

II entered its sixth day as the crew headed home for a scheduled splashdown in waters off Southern California on Friday. The mission included authentic photos of the Moon and Earth transmitted by the crew. However, online conspiracy theories emerged, with social media users claiming the mission was staged using green screens.

France 24 reported that these claims included shared AI-generated images of a staging setup and a manipulated CNN interview clip showing a "glitching" Artemis mascot with text bleeding through. In reality, the CNN live stream showed no defect; the viral mobile phone recording likely resulted from a television graphics overlay error.

AI-generated fantastical images of the mission have garnered millions of views online. The Artemis program aims to resume crewed lunar exploration, building on the success of this uncrewed test flight's crewed counterpart. The far side of the Moon, explored during the flyby, remains a focus for scientific interest due to its isolation from Earth-based signals.