A crew member of Artemis II got a warm welcome from her four-legged friend when she returned from circling the moon.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch recorded the moment she was reunited with her rescue dog, Sadie, a few days after the crew splashed down off the coast of San Diego, Fox 10 reported Monday.
“I’m still pretty sure I was the happier side of this reunion. Sadie taught me everything I needed to know about being an emotional support animal. Didn’t expect that would come in handy,” Koch wrote in the caption of her Instagram post.
The video showed the moment Sadie realized her owner was just outside their front door. The dog scratched at the door, then barked several times while excitedly wagging her tail.
The second it opened and Koch appeared, Sadie jumped into her arms then ran to retrieve a toy for her owner.
“Hi Sadie baby!” Koch exclaimed as she knelt to embrace her pup. The clip also showed Koch running and playing with Sadie at the beach after their reunion:
Koch and her fellow astronauts. Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen, were brought back to Earth safely on Friday, with Mission Control calling their return “a perfect bullseye splashdown,” per Breitbart News.
Theirs was the first manned moon mission in over 50 years, the Fox article said, noting they traveled further into space than anyone has before.
“Koch herself made history as the first woman to journey beyond low Earth orbit and fly around the moon,” the outlet noted.
Meanwhile, We Rate Dogs also shared the heart-warming video of Koch and her dog, saying the mission “took her the furthest any human has ever been from their dog,” and giving Sadie a 14 out of 10:
Clever social media users commented on the post, one person writing, “Sadie’s universe just came home,” while another user said, “Loved her to the moon and back.”