NASA Artemis 2 Crew Breaks Record for Farthest Distance from Earth
April 6, 2026, was a special day, a milestone not just for the NASA crew of astronauts, but for all of space exploration and humanity. The Artemis crew broke the previous record set by the crew of the Apollo 13 mission of 1970 for the farthest distance humanity had ever traveled from Earth. The record previously was 248,655 miles or 400,171 km, reached on April 15, 1970. However, the Artemis 2 Crew reached a distance of 252,756 miles, as stated on NASA’s website.
The three NASA astronauts who are aboard the Orion spacecraft are Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover. CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen was also aboard the spacecraft. They surpassed the record on their sixth day of spaceflight. They began that Monday with a pre-recorded message left by Jim Lovell, the late NASA astronaut who flew both the Apollo 8 and 13 moon missions abroad.
This day marks a very significant day in history. April 6, 2026, is now known as the day when humanity traveled farther away from the Earth than ever before. Hansen stated that the crew was able to see many lunar features that otherwise had never been seen before by any human being.
A student was asked if it was worth the wait all these years to send humans back in space. “I think the wait was worth it in the sense that we now have more technology and resources compared to the times of Apollo 13,” said junior Robert Hurtado.
Many cameras are capturing the imagery of the moon as we speak during its lunar flyby, according to NASA’s website. Some of these photos will showcase features of the moon that no human has directly seen.
As they began to hurtle around the moon’s far side, the astronauts photographed a rare moment. It was where Earth set and rose with the lunar horizon as they moved around the moon. Given that the moon rotates at the same speed at which it revolves around the Earth, the far side from our view is always faced away from Earth. Only astronauts of the Apollo and Artemis missions have ever gazed directly at the far side.
After having broken the record, they asked permission to name the two new lunar craters they observed. The astronauts offered two names: Integrity (the name of their capsule) and Carroll (in honor of Wiseman’s wife Carroll, who passed away from cancer in 2020).
Sometimes, we might even wonder what these astronauts were thinking about during this record-breaking moment. During the moment Wiseman named the crater after his late wife, even while they were seeing parts of the moon nobody had seen before.
“What would be going through my mind is how beautiful this planet is and how unfortunate that we don’t take care of it as much as we should. There’s no other planet like it,” said space enthusiast Christina Alonso.
Once they made it halfway through the lunar flyby, a 40-minute communication blackout occurred when they ducked behind the moon. According to PBS News, during the blackout, the astronauts “were on track to make their closest approach to the moon” at 4,067 miles, reaching their maximum distance of 252,756 miles.
Once they reached this point, their journey back home began, a total of four days until arrival, concluding their test flight this Friday, April 10, according to PBS News. NASA states that they splashed down on the coast of San Diego at 8:07 p.m. (EDT) and 5:07 p.m. (PDT).
NASA geologist Kelsey Young, known as their “moon mentor,” was expecting thousands of pictures, given that people all over the world connect with the moon, as she stated in the news report.
According to PBS, “The Artemis 2 is NASA’s first astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972.” The Artemis 2 laid the foundation for next year’s Artemis 3, with another crew practicing their docking with lunar landers around Earth in orbit. In Artemis IV in 2028, two astronauts will land on the moon near the moon’s south pole.
NASA will continue to send Artemis astronauts on missions that become more challenging to explore more of the moon for scientific discovery, among many other reasons. We are building the foundation to send the first crewed mission to Mars.
