Artemis II Crew Reaches 252,756 Miles, Breaks Distance Record

Four astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft shattered the record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth on April 6, 2026, reaching approximately 252,756 miles during a historic flyby of the Moon's far side. The milestone, achieved just after 1:56 p.m. EDT, surpassed the 248,655 miles set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970. The crew, consisting of NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1 at 6:35 p.m. EDT, marking the first crewed deep-space mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The Artemis II mission follows a free-return trajectory, leveraging the Moon's gravity to slingshot the capsule back toward Earth without additional propulsion after an initial burn. Orion executed its translunar injection burn on April 2, a five-minute, 50-second maneuver that propelled the spacecraft out of Earth's orbit and onto a path for the lunar encounter. Early in the flight, the crew conducted a manual piloting demonstration and tested communications via NASA's Deep Space Network, a global array of antennas in the United States, Spain,...