The Artemis II crew achieved a historic milestone on Monday at 12:56 p.m. EDT, reaching 248,655 miles from Earth and surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. The four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch from NASA, and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency—will hit a maximum distance of 252,756 miles, or about 406,700 kilometers, before turning back toward Earth.
Launched on April 1 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the SLS rocket, the mission marked the first crewed flight of NASA’s Artemis program. After propulsion maneuvers to exit Earth orbit, Orion headed for the Moon. Six days into the flight, the crew captured images of the lunar surface while traveling farther than any humans before.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen commented from Orion: From the Integrity cabin, as we surpass the greatest distance humans have traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honor of the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. We will continue our journey even farther into space before Mother Earth pulls us back to all that we cherish. Most importantly, we choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to ensure this record does not last long.
During the lunar flyby, Orion approached within 4,067 miles of the surface, allowing the crew to view parts of the far side with the naked eye and witness a solar eclipse. The crew proposed naming two lunar craters: one for the spacecraft Integrity and another for Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll. These names will be submitted to the International Astronomical Union after the mission.
NASA lost contact with the crew for 40 minutes as planned, when the Moon blocked signals via the Deep Space Network. Upon reconnection, Christina Koch said: Houston, we are receiving you loud and clear, and it is wonderful to hear from Earth again.
Cameras captured high-resolution images of previously unseen lunar features. The mission, now past its halfway point, is set to splash down off San Diego at 8:07 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 10. Recovery teams will helicopter the crew to the USS John P. Murtha for post-flight medical checks before returning to NASA’s Johnson Space Center.