The Artemis II Crew Named Two Moon Craters — Here Is the Science and Story Behind Each

The Artemis II crew proposed naming two Moon craters — one after their spacecraft 'Integrity' and one after Commander Wiseman's late wife Carroll. Here is the science and the human story behind each name.

Two Names on the Moon, Two Stories Behind Them

As the Artemis II Orion spacecraft swung around the far side of the Moon on April 6, 2026, the four astronauts did something that no human beings had been positioned to do since Apollo 17 in 1972: observe lunar surface features with direct human eyes at close range and in unprecedented detail. In that specific observational moment, they proposed naming two previously unnamed craters they had observed — creating the particular kind of human mark on the specific geography of another world that exploration has always left behind.

The first name: Integrity. The proposal to name a crater after their spacecraft reflects the specific tradition of marking exploration achievements through place naming — from the specific names that Apollo astronauts gave features near their landing sites to the particular naming conventions that Mars rovers have used for the specific rocks and craters they study. "Integrity" — the Orion capsule's specific crew-chosen name, reflecting the particular values the mission represents — becomes a permanent feature name on the specific geological record of the Moon's surface.

The second name: Carroll. Commander Reid Wiseman proposed naming a crater after his late wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020. The specific crater is positioned precisely on the boundary between the near side and far side of the Moon — at the specific latitude and longitude where it is visible from Earth at certain points in the Moon's orbit around the planet. "We lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie," fellow astronaut Jeremy Hansen said during the transmission, turning a mission milestone into an act of specific human love made permanent in lunar geography.

The Process of Officially Naming a Crater

Lunar crater naming is governed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the specific scientific body whose Nomenclature Committee for Nomenclature in Planetary Systems manages the specific process through which names are proposed, reviewed, and officially adopted for planetary features.

The specific IAU process involves the particular submission of a proposed name with specific scientific justification for its application to a specific feature, review by the specific IAU working group for the relevant planetary body, broader committee consideration, and final approval by the specific General Assembly — a process whose particular timeline typically involves years rather than months.

For the Artemis-proposed names, the specific path to official adoption will involve the particular coordination between NASA, the Canadian Space Agency (as Hansen proposed the Carroll naming on behalf of the crew), and the IAU's specific procedural requirements. The particular cultural and scientific significance of names proposed by astronauts who directly observed the specific features they're naming gives the proposals a specific legitimacy that desk-based naming requests don't carry — though the formal process applies equally to all proposals.

What the Craters Actually Look Like

The specific geological character of the craters being named reflects the particular Moon surface environment that makes the far side distinct from the near side. The far side — never directly visible from Earth — has significantly more cratered terrain and fewer of the specific large volcanic mare plains (the "seas" that give the near side its distinctive visual character) because the specific geological history of the two hemispheres differs.

The Integrity crater and Carroll crater — whose specific locations are precisely on or near the near/far side boundary — reflect the specific geological transition zone where the particular differences between the two hemispheres are visible in the specific crater density, the specific regolith character, and the particular ejecta patterns that characterize the specific terrain.

For the specific Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 landing sites that the crew observed during the flyby — visible from Orion at the specific proximity that 4,066 miles represents — the ability to directly confirm the landing site locations, observe the specific terrain context that the low-angle Apollo photography captured in two dimensions, and see the features that Apollo astronauts walked through in the three-dimensional context that orbital photography cannot fully convey — this specific direct observation is among the particular scientific and historical values of crewed lunar missions that remote sensing and robotic exploration cannot replace.