Artemis II crew becomes farthest-flying humans

Orion capsule enters moon's gravitational sphere of influence

HOUSTON:

NASA's Artemis II astronauts reached a historic milestone on Monday, entering the moon's gravitational sphere of influence and preparing to break a 56-year human spaceflight record.

The Orion capsule, carrying Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen along with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, is set to travel approximately 252,757 miles from Earth, surpassing the Apollo 13 record by 4,102 miles.

As the crew sails over the moon's shadowed far side, they will experience brief communications blackouts with NASA's Deep Space Network. The nearly six-hour lunar flyby, beginning officially at 2:34 pm ET, will allow the astronauts to photograph the moon's silhouetted edges and the distant Earth, offering rare scientific views of sunlight filtering around the lunar horizon.

This milestone marks the sixth day of the nearly 10-day Artemis II mission, the first crewed test flight of NASA's multibillion-dollar Artemis programme. The mission lays groundwork for planned moon landings by 2028 and a sustainable US presence, with a future lunar base serving as a stepping-stone for potential Mars exploration.

Onboard, the crew will document lunar phenomena through Orion's windows, while a team of lunar scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston monitors and records their observations in real time. The mission promises unprecedented photographs and data, providing both scientific insight and a striking visual reminder of humanity's expanding reach into deep space.