Christina Koch's Lunar Mission Included a Special Tribute to Her Favorite NFL Team

Christina Koch and the rest of the four-person Artemis II crew returned from their historic 10-day lunar flyby mission on Friday, bringing home a wealth of new research for scientists to explore.

Koch had some important cargo from Earth as the Orion spacecraft traveled around the moon: confetti from the Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl LIX victory.

Koch was introduced to Eagles fandom by her husband, Robert.

"Going to the Moon may have been my Super Bowl, but I sure loved watching yours. (I watch Eagles games on Earth, too.)" Koch wrote in a post on Instagram.

"My husband introduced me to this team and city—gritty, hard working and embodying the underdog mentality. Now I’m all in," she continued. "As a surprise for him, I flew confetti from Super Bowl LIX around the Moon.

"Go birds!"

"We loved watching you Fly," the Eagles responded in the comment section.

The Eagles clicked on all cylinders as a team when it notched its 40-22 Super Bowl LIX victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 9, 2025.

Koch and her team, featuring astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen, had to work as a unit to accomplish their historic mission.

“A crew is a group that is in it all the time, no matter what, that is stroking together every minute with the same purpose, that is willing to sacrifice silently for each other, that gives grace, that holds accountable,” Koch said at Houston's Johnson Space Center on Saturday. “A crew has the same cares and the same needs, and a crew is inescapably beautifully, dutifully linked.”

“I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me,” she continued. “But there’s one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth: You are a crew.”