Cape Canaveral, Florida – The four astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis 2 lunar mission have ventured farther from Earth than any humans before, surpassing the Apollo 13 record from 1970.
The crew in the Orion spacecraft achieved a maximum distance of 406,771 kilometers, exceeding Apollo 13’s mark of approximately 400,171 kilometers, according to NASA. The team consists of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
On flight day six, Orion approached the Moon to within about 6,545 kilometers, the closest point during the mission. No landing was planned. The flight path traces a figure-eight around Earth and the Moon, covering more than 2.3 million kilometers in total.
During the pass over the Moon’s far side, the crew temporarily lost radio contact with Earth as planned. Earlier, Orion entered the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence, where lunar gravity exceeded Earth’s pull on the spacecraft.