HOUSTON (AP) — Drawing ever closer to Earth, the Artemis II astronauts tidied up their lunar cruiser for the upcoming “fireball” return and reflected on their historic journey around the moon, describing it as surreal and profound.

As the next-to-last day of their flight dawned Thursday, humanity’s first lunar explorers in more than half a century were less than 150,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) from home with the odometer clicking down.

“We have to get back. There’s so much data that you’ve seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There are so many more pictures, so many more stories,” said pilot Victor Glover, adding that “riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well.”

Being cut off from all of humanity for nearly an hour while behind the moon was especially “surreal,” according to commander Reid Wiseman.

“There’s a lot that our brains have to process … and it is a true gift,” Wiseman said late Wednesday during the crew’s first news conference since before liftoff.

While out of contact behind the moon Monday, Wiseman, Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen became the most distant humans ever, clocking in at a record 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers) from Earth before heading back. As they emerged from behind the moon, they experienced a wondrous total solar eclipse as the orb blocked the sun from their perspective.

Launching from Florida on April 1 diminished the amount of illumination on the lunar far side, Glover noted, but the eclipse was the consolation prize “and it was one of the greatest gifts.”

While acknowledging anxiety over Friday’s return, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said the crew’s “expressions of love and devotion to family” have warmed hearts worldwide and served as “a great example of why we go and do these missions.”

”If you can’t take love to the stars, then what are we doing?” he said. “That’s why we send humans instead of robots sometimes, that’s why we have that firsthand witness.”

Friday’s reentry and Pacific splashdown off the coast of San Diego — as dynamic and dangerous as liftoff — now topped everyone’s minds. The recovery ship, USS John P. Murtha, was already at sea, with a squadron of military planes and helicopters poised to join the operation.

It’s the first time that NASA and the Defense Department have teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry since Apollo 17 in 1972. Their Orion capsule will come screaming back, hitting the atmosphere at a predicted 34,965 feet (10,657 meters) per second — or 23,840 mph (38,367 kph) — not a record but still mind-bogglingly fast.

Flight director Jeff Radigan said the capsule must nail the reentry angle within a single degree.

“Let’s not beat around the bush. We have to hit that angle correctly — otherwise we’re not going to have a successful reentry,” he said.

Mission Control will be paying close attention to how the capsule’s heat shield holds up. During the only other Orion test flight to the moon — in 2022 without a crew — the heat shield suffered considerably more damage than expected from the 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) of reentry.

Instead of replacing Artemis II’s heat shield, which would have forced another lengthy delay, NASA tweaked the capsule’s descent through the atmosphere to reduce the blisteringly hot exposure. Next year’s Artemis III and beyond will fly with redesigned heat shields.

Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV in 2028 will attempt to land two astronauts near the moon’s south pole, setting the stage for what NASA hopes will be a sustainable lunar base.

NASA officials have been loath to provide their risk assessment numbers for the nearly 10-day mission, acknowledging launch and entry as the biggest threats.

“We’re down to the wire now,” said NASA’s Lakiesha Hawkins. “We’re down to the end of the mission, and obviously getting the crew back home and getting them landed safely, is a significant part of the risk that’s still in front of us.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A tentative ceasefire in the Iran war staggered Thursday under the weight of Israel’s intense bombardment of Beirut, Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and uncertainty over whether negotiators can find common ground on a range of other differences.

Hours after the ceasefire was announced — amid disagreement over whether it included a pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, resulting in the deadliest day in the country since the war began on Feb. 28.

Iran and the U.S. — which both declared victory in the wake of the ceasefire announcement — appeared to try to pressure each other. Semiofficial news agencies in Iran suggested forces have mined the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world’s oil whose closure has proved Tehran’s greatest strategic advantage in the conflict. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned that U.S. forces would hit Iran even harder than before if it did not fulfill the agreement.

But what that agreement is remains in deep dispute. Beyond whether Lebanon is included, there are questions over what will happen to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, how and when normal traffic will resume through the strait, and what happens to Iran’s ability to launch missile attacks in the future.

The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency said protecting Tehran’s right to enrich uranium is “necessary” for any ceasefire talks with the United States.

Mohammad Eslami, who leads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, made the remarks Thursday to journalists, including one from The Associated Press, during commemorations for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran.

“It is a part of the necessary (things) that nobody speaks about,” Eslami said, referring to the U.S. refusal to acknowledge enrichment as one part of Iran’s 10-point plan for a permanent ceasefire.

The U.S. and Iran are due to meet in Pakistan for talks this weekend.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon threaten the ceasefire

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 203 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded in widespread Israeli strikes in central Beirut and other areas of Lebanon on Wednesday, when Israel intensified its attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, which joined the war in support of Tehran.

The death toll was the highest for a single day in Lebanon during more than five weeks of renewed war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel said Thursday it killed Ali Yusuf Harshi, an aide to Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump said it was not.

On Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel will continue striking Hezbollah “with force, precision and determination.”

“Whoever acts against the citizens of Israel will be harmed,” Netanyahu wrote on social media.

A New York-based think tank warned the ceasefire “ hovers on the verge of collapse.”

“Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless,” the Soufan Center wrote in an analysis. “Israel’s strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions.”

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Thursday that an Israeli strike overnight had killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military did not immediately acknowledge the strike.

Oil prices remain high amid uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz

Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart Thursday suggesting the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the strait during the war — a message that may be intended to pressure the U.S.

The chart, released by the ISNA news agency and Tasnim, showed a large circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the route ships take through the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas once passed.

Only a trickle of ships have passed through the strait since the war began after a few were attacked and Iran threatened to hit any that it deemed connected to the U.S. or Israel. Ships appeared to continue to avoid the strait Wednesday, despite the ceasefire: Data from Kpler showed only four vessels with their trackers on passed through.

The chart suggested ships travel through waters closer to Iran’s mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed taking during the war. It was dated from Feb. 28 until April 9, and it was unclear if the Guard had cleared any mines since then.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told the BBC on Thursday that his country will allow ships to pass through the strait in accordance with “international norms and international law” once the United States ends its “aggression” in the Middle East and Israel stops attacking Lebanon.

The strait’s de facto closure has caused oil prices to skyrocket — raising, in turn, the cost of gasoline, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East. Oil prices fell on news of the ceasefire Wednesday, but began to climb as uncertainty over the deal grew.

The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around $98 Thursday — up about 35% since the war began.

Trump warned that U.S. warships and troops will remain around Iran “until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.”

If it is not, “then the ‘Shootin’ Starts,’ bigger, and better,” Trump wrote in a social media message.

Peace talks expected in Pakistan

The White House said that Vice President JD Vance would lead the U.S. delegation for talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war, which are set to start Saturday.

There appear to be many points of disagreement to address, including whether Iran will be allowed to formalize a system of charging ships to use the strait that it has instituted. That would upend decades of precedent treating it as an international waterway that was free to transit.

The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war — also remained unclear. The U.S. insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build them, should it choose to pursue the bomb. Iran insists its program is peaceful.

Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. would work with Iran to remove the buried uranium, though Iran did not confirm that. In one version of the deal that Iran published, it said it would be allowed to continue enrichment.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran, the United States and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire, an 11th hour deal that allowed U.S. President Donald Trump to pull back from his threats to unleash a bombing campaign that would destroy Iranian civilization. But attacks in Iran and Gulf Arab countries resumed Wednesday, throwing the deal into question.

Even before the new strikes were reported, much about the deal was unclear as the sides presented vastly different visions of the terms.

— Iran said the deal would allow it to formalize its new practice of charging ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, but the terms were not clear, nor was whether ships would feel safe using the crucial transit lane for oil. It also was unclear whether any other country agreed to this condition.

— Pakistan, which helped to mediate the deal, and others said fighting would pause in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Israel said it would not.

— The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war — also remained unclear.

As U.S. Vice President JD Vance called the agreement “a fragile truce,” the United Arab Emirates reported an incoming Iranian missile barrage, and Kuwait’s military said it was responding to drones. Iran then said an oil refinery came under attack.

In the streets of Tehran, pro-government demonstrators screamed: “Death to America, death to Israel, death to compromisers!” after the ceasefire announcement and burned American and Israeli flags. The chants underscored the anger animating hard-liners, who have been preparing for what many assumed would be an apocalyptic battle with the United States. Trump warned Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” if a deal wasn’t reached.

Varying reports of ceasefire’s terms

Trump initially said Iran proposed a “workable” 10-point plan that could help end the war the U.S. launched with Israel on Feb. 28. But when a version in Farsi emerged that indicated Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium — which is key to building a nuclear weapon — Trump called it fraudulent without elaborating.

Trump also suggested American warships would be “hangin’ around” the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime. That could be a potential flashpoint in days to come.

Iran’s demands for ending the war, meanwhile, include a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions, and the release of its frozen assets.

All those likely are nonstarters for Trump and other Western nations.

Pakistan said that talks to hammer out a permanent end to the war could begin in Islamabad as soon as Friday.

Israel backed the U.S. ceasefire with Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Wednesday that the deal doesn’t cover fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s military said later that fighting and ground operations continue.

Iran and Oman will collect shipping fees in Strait of Hormuz

While Iran could not match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz since the war began proved a tremendous strategic advantage: The chokehold roiled the world economy and raised the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

The ceasefire may formalize that control — and give Iran a new source of revenue.

The plan allows for both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting through the strait, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations they were directly involved in. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.

That would upend decades of precedent treating the strait as an international waterway that was free to transit and will likely not be acceptable to the Gulf Arab states, which also need to rebuild after repeated Iranian attacks targeting their oil fields.

“Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process,” Trump said on social media.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said passage through the strait would be allowed under Iranian military management — further clouding the picture of who would be allowed to transit the strait.

Nevertheless, news of the ceasefire drove oil prices down and pushed stocks up Wednesday.

Fate of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs remains unclear

The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran, but they have not entirely eliminated the threats posed by Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles or its support for regional proxies, like Hezbollah. The U.S. and Israel said addressing those threats was a key justification for going to war.

Iran seems to still have the means to restart its nuclear program — which it says is peaceful, although it has enriched uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.

That stockpile of highly enriched uranium is still believed to be buried, and Tehran referred to the program differently in two versions of the ceasefire plan that it released. The version in Farsi included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program. That phrase was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats with journalists.

A senior Israeli official said the United States had coordinated the ceasefire with Israel in advance and said Israel’s government credited “the massive crushing of the regime’s infrastructure” with securing the agreement.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing private diplomatic conversations, the official said Washington had committed to pressing for the removal of nuclear material and dismantling of Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Airstrikes reported in the hours after the deal is announced

Missile alerts were issued in the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait after the ceasefire announcement. A gas processing facility in Abu Dhabi was ablaze after incoming Iranian fire, officials said.

The fire stopped for a time, but then restarted.

The United Arab Emirates said Wednesday afternoon its air defenses fired at an incoming Iranian missile barrage. Kuwait’s military said its forces responded to an “extensive wave” of drone attacks.

And Iranian state television reported that an oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island came under attack. The report said that firefighters were working to contain the blaze but no one had been hurt. It did not say who launched the attack.

The island is home to one of the offshore terminals that Iran uses to export oil and gas. The U.S. military’s Central Command did not respond to questions about the strike.

More than 1,900 people had been killed in Iran as of late March, but the government has not updated the war’s toll for days.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 people have been killed. and 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.