The four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II reached the deepest point in space ever travelled by humans on Monday, following a trajectory shaped by the Moon’s gravity as they headed toward a historic crewed flyby of its far side.
Flying aboard the Orion capsule, the crew began their sixth day in space after waking to a recorded message from the late astronaut Jim Lovell, who flew on Apollo 8 and Apollo 13. “Welcome to my old neighborhood,” Lovell said in the message recorded before his death last year at 97.
The Artemis II astronauts surpassed the previous record of 248,000 miles from Earth set by Apollo 13 in 1970, when a near-catastrophic malfunction forced Lovell and his crewmates to rely on the Moon’s gravity to return safely. Later in the day, the crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — were set to reach 252,755 miles from Earth, extending the record by more than 4,000 miles.
Naming lunar features
During the journey, astronauts informally named previously unlabelled lunar features. Hansen proposed naming one crater “Integrity,” after the Orion capsule, and another — visible near the boundary of the Moon’s near and far sides — in honour of Wiseman’s late wife, Carrol.
“We lost a loved one,” Hansen said, his voice breaking as he described the proposed tribute. “It’s a bright spot on the Moon, and we would like to call that Carrol.”
If all goes as planned, Orion will soon pass about 4,000 miles above the Moon’s far side — the hemisphere that never faces Earth due to the Moon’s synchronous rotation. This will mark a defining moment in the nearly 10-day Artemis II mission, the first crewed test flight of NASA’s Artemis programme since the Apollo era.
Rare views and future ambitions
The mission is part of a multibillion-dollar effort to return humans to the Moon by 2028 and establish a sustained presence, laying the groundwork for future missions to Mars. The last human moon landing took place during Apollo 17.
As the spacecraft swings behind the Moon, the crew will experience temporary communication blackouts as the lunar body blocks signals from NASA’s Deep Space Network. During the six-hour flyby, astronauts will capture detailed images of the Moon, including rare views of sunlight tracing its edges.
They are also expected to photograph a striking perspective of Earth appearing to rise and set along the lunar horizon — a reversal of the familiar “moonrise” seen from Earth — offering both a symbolic and scientifically valuable view from humanity’s farthest vantage point in space.
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