Artemis 2 astronauts break record for traveling furthest from Earth

The crew of the Artemis 2 lunar mission has traveled further from Earth than any human has ever traveled before, the American space agency NASA announced on Monday.

The four astronauts traveled 406,711 kilometers from Earth, eclipsing the record of 400,171 km set in 1970 by the crew of the Apollo 13 mission.

The Artemis 2 crew, made up of US astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, took off on Wednesday evening aboard the Orion capsule on the Space Launch System rocket from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida.

The crew was the first to see parts of the far side of the Moon with human eyes.

They also witnessed a solar eclipse as the moon passed in front of the sun.

During their lunar flyby, a fleet of cameras captured images of the Moon, including features humans have never seen directly, NASA said.

Hansen said the lunar flyby was an “extraordinary” experience.

“When we were on the far side of the Moon, looking at the Earth, you really felt like you weren’t in a capsule.

“You were transported to the far side of the moon. And that really shocked you,” he said.

Koch said she wasn’t ready to return to Earth yet. “I’m not ready to go home,” she said.

“I can’t believe something so narrow can go unnoticed and yet be entertaining every single minute.”

In addition to the spaceflight record, the crew suggested naming two craters on the moon during the flight.

The first is named after their spaceship, Integrity.

The second honors Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, NASA said.

Once the mission is complete, proposals for crater names will be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union, the organization that governs the naming of celestial bodies and their surface features.

Hansen said the mission was also intended to honor the crew’s predecessors in human spaceflight.

He said the result should “challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lasting”.

On Monday, NASA said it had reached the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence, which is the point where the Moon’s gravity has a stronger effect than Earth’s.

For Glover, Koch and Wiseman, this is their second spaceflight; for Hansen it is the first.

Koch is the first woman aboard a NASA lunar mission, Glover the first non-white person and Hansen the first Canadian.

The flight path of Artemis 2 resembles a figure of eight around the Earth and Moon.

The four astronauts will cover a total of more than 2.3 million kilometers before returning to Earth in the Pacific Ocean.

The crew is scheduled to ditch Friday off the coast of San Diego.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote in X that the crew was now on its way home.

“Before they left, they said they hoped this mission would be forgotten, but it will be remembered as the moment when people began to believe that America could once again do the nearly impossible and change the world,” he wrote.

“Congratulations to this incredible crew and the entire NASA team, our international and commercial partners, but this mission will not be over until they land in the Pacific under safe parachutes.”

The first person on the Moon was Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969.

The last person to leave the Moon to date was NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan, who died in 2017, during the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.

In total, the United States – the only country to have done so so far – sent 12 astronauts to the Moon between 1969 and 1972 as part of the Apollo missions.