The Artemis II crew, which has been flying in its Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, awoke around 10:50 a.m. EST on its sixth day of flight to a taped message from the late Apollo 8 and 13 astronaut Jim Lovell.
“Welcome to my old neighborhood,” said Lovell, who died last year at age 97. “It’s a historic day and I know how busy you’ll be, but don’t forget to enjoy the view… good luck.”
A new milestone for mankind: The crew of Artemis II are now the farthest any human has ever traveled, reaching a maximum distance of 252,752 miles from Earth.
This surpasses the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 by about 4,102 miles. pic.twitter.com/DbLFvvdEfT
— NASA (@NASA) April 6, 2026
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen are scheduled to reach their maximum distance from Earth later today of approximately 406,778 kilometers, about 6,606 km more than the record held by Lovell and his Apollo 13 crew for 56 years.
It will then sail around the far side of the Moon, viewing it from approximately 6,440 kilometers above its darkened surface, with Earth far in the background looking like it’s the size of a basketball, reports Hina.
The milestone is the culmination of the nearly 10-day Artemis II mission, the first manned test flight of NASA’s Artemis program.
The goal of the multibillion-dollar series of missions is to return astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2028, before China, and establish a long-term American presence there over the next decade and build a lunar base that would serve as a training ground for potential future missions to Mars.
During the flyby of the moon, the crew will be immersed in darkness, and will have short communication interruptions because the moon blocks NASA’s network in deep space, the so-called. Deep Space Network, a global array of massive radio communications antennas used by the space agency to communicate with the crew.
New record
The Artemis II astronauts are now farther from Earth than humans have ever been! At 1:57 pm EDT, they broke the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
Their journey around the far side of the Moon today will take them a maximum distance of 252,752 miles from Earth. pic.twitter.com/P5Swojpn0n
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) April 6, 2026
The flyby will last about six hours, during which the astronauts will use professional cameras to take detailed photos of the moon through the Orion window, revealing a rare vantage point of great scientific value from which to watch sunlight filter around the moon’s edges.
The crew will also have the opportunity to photograph a rare moment in which their home planet Earth, dwarfed by their record distance in space, will set and rise above the lunar horizon as they orbit it, a celestial version of the moonrise seen from Earth.
A team of dozens of lunar scientists based in the Science Evaluation Room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will record as the astronauts, who studied a range of lunar phenomena as part of mission training, describe their view in real time.
(Vijesti.ba)
