Artemis II sets new record as astronauts travel farthest from Earth than ever before [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Mon 6 Apr 2026 14.19 EDT
First published on Mon 6 Apr 2026 08.12 EDT



In this photo provided by Nasa, the moon is seen in the window of the Orion spacecraft at the end of day five of a journey to the moon. Photograph: AP


Artemis II astronauts broke Apollo 13’s distance record at 1.57pm eastern time on Monday, hugging each other in the cramped capsule as they made history for being the first four humans to travel the farthest from Earth than anyone before them. Before hitting the record, the quartet dimmed the lights in their capsule and positioned themselves by the windows in preparation to set the long-distance record as they fly by the moon without stopping – with plans to ultimately swing around for planet Earth.

The four astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of the US space agency Nasa; and the Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – will become Earth’s farthest travelled, going 5,000 miles (8,000km) beyond the moon, exceeding the distance record set by 1970’s ill-fated Apollo 13.

They were under instruction to make observations of the Earth’s only moon to make annotations and audio recordings and situation reports on “how the crew is positioned, any missed targets, anything unexpected they saw, lunar target descriptions, and their emotions and reactions as they fly-by the moon”.

Astronauts on the emergency flyby in 1970 – commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert – reached a maximum 248,655 miles from Earth before making their turn. Artemis’s crew should exceed Apollo 13’s mission by about 4,000 miles.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/06/artemis-ii-astronauts-record-moon-earth-distance