From left to right, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, with ESA's European Service Module team behind them at ESTEC.

The four Artemis II astronauts visited ESTEC, ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands, on 13 July as the first stop in a series of post-flight visits to the European teams that made their mission possible.

The day included a visit to the Eagle mission control room, where ESA and Airbus engineers monitored the European Service Module around the clock throughout Artemis II. There, astronauts met some of the ESA specialists who had supported their flight from Earth.

“Walking into this room and seeing it full of the engineers who were actually sitting on console during our mission monitoring things was awesome,” said Christina Koch later during the visit. “I could have stayed in here all day.”

The astronauts and engineers shared their perspectives on key moments of the mission – the engineers following events from ESTEC, the astronauts experiencing them first-hand in deep space.

They discussed the trans-lunar injection burn, performed by the European Service Module’s main engine around 25 hours after launch, which was so precise that two planned trajectory correction manoeuvres were no longer required.

During the visit, NASA Orion Program Manager Howard Hu presented ESA with a Program Award acknowledging Europe’s important contribution to Artemis II. Several members of the European Service Module team also received certificates and an Artemis II patch flown on board Orion during the mission, in recognition of their contribution and dedication.

The recognition reflected the vital role played by ESA’s European Service Module and by the teams who developed and monitored it throughout Artemis II. Built by European industry under ESA leadership and assembled by Airbus in Bremen, Germany, the module supplied air and water for the crew, generated electrical power through its four solar arrays, maintained thermal control and provided the propulsion needed to carry Orion over one million kilometres through deep space, around the Moon and safely back to Earth.

During the mission, Artemis II pilot Victor Glover manually flew Orion using the European Service Module’s engines. At a press conference during the visit, he reflected on that experience: “The European Service Module flew like a dream … every space flyer dreams of flying a spaceship by hand in space. Thank you to the European Space Agency, to the Airbus team, and the Europeans that made it possible.”