Being separated from your dog can be ruff, especially if that separation includes being launched into space, but that makes the reunion all the more pawsome.
In an Instagram post shared Sunday, NASA astronaut Christina Koch, one of the four Artemis II crew members, enters her home after her return from her space mission — and her dog, Sadie, is about to blast off from sheer excitement.
Sadie jumps at the door after Koch becomes visible through the window. Her tail frantically wags and she barks with joy as Koch enters. The dog, experiencing what many call “the zoomies,” runs back and forth across the room.
“I’m still pretty sure I was the happier side of this reunion,” Koch wrote. “Sadie taught me everything I needed to know about being an emotional support animal. Didn’t expect that would come in handy.”
Koch, in the same post, shared another video showing her and Sadie running and jumping together on the beach and through the ocean waves.
Koch and her fellow Artemis II crew members — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — traveled 694,481 miles, making their lunar flyby the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. The previous distance record was set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.
After 10 days in space, the Artemis II crew safely returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
The Artemis II mission's data will most likely help plan future moon landings.
“Artemis II science will pave the way for future missions to the Moon’s surface by helping advance mission operations and training astronauts to use well-informed judgment to identify areas of high interest for science and exploration,” NASA wrote.