NASA astronaut Victor J. Glover Jr. and the Artemis II crew pushed deeper into space Monday, breaking the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth as their spacecraft swept around the moon.
At 1:56 p.m. Eastern time, the Orion spacecraft carrying Glover, Commander Reid Wiseman, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen passed 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the mark set during the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.
The milestone came as the crew entered the most demanding phase of their 10-day mission, a roughly seven-hour lunar flyby that began earlier in the afternoon.
“As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration,” Wiseman said during a live transmission from the Orion capsule. “We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear, but we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.”
Earlier in the day, Glover, a U.S. Navy captain and veteran test pilot who is serving as pilot aboard the Orion spacecraft, checked in from inside the spacecraft, known as “Integrity,” reporting the crew’s position tens of thousands of miles from the moon as preparations intensified for the flyby.
Glover is the first Black astronaut to travel into deep space.
“Good morning, Houston, from inside Integrity, 215,049 miles away from Earth, and 12,712 miles from the moon,” Glover said during a communication with Mission Control.
According to NASA mission updates, the spacecraft entered the moon’s gravitational sphere of influence early Monday, marking the point where the moon’s pull became stronger than Earth’s. The crew began formal science operations at approximately 1:30 p.m. Eastern, setting up cameras and preparing to document lunar features across both the near and far sides.
The timeline outlined by NASA shows the spacecraft moving through a series of tightly scheduled milestones. A communications blackout is expected as Orion passes behind the moon, followed by its closest approach at about 4,070 miles above the lunar surface and a maximum distance from Earth of roughly 252,760 miles later in the evening.
During the flyby, astronauts are working in shifts to capture images and record observations of dozens of targets, including craters and basins not fully visible from Earth. Scientists say the observations will help refine understanding of the moon’s surface and support planning for future missions.
The crew also witnessed a solar eclipse from space as the moon blocked the sun, giving them a view of the solar corona and surrounding planets.
The Artemis II mission marks the first time humans have traveled to the vicinity of the moon since 1972.
“We will explore, we will build, we will build ships, we will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers, we will do radio astronomy,” Koch said on April 6. “We will inspire, but ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We’ll always choose each other.”
