NASA’s Artemis II astronauts have set a new record for the farthest distance travelled from Earth by humans. On Monday, April 6, 2026, at 12:56 p.m. CDT, the crew aboard the Orion spacecraft reached 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. At its farthest point, the spacecraft will travel approximately 252,756 miles before returning toward Earth.
Orion launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 1 aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and executed trajectory burns to set its course toward the Moon. During the mission, the astronauts will come within about 4,067 miles of the lunar surface, observe previously unseen regions of the Moon’s far side, and witness a solar eclipse.
The crew—NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are six days into the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program. They have been capturing high-resolution images of the Moon and conducting observations to support future Artemis missions, including plans for a permanent lunar presence.
The crew also proposed naming two lunar craters: one after the spacecraft, Integrity, and another in honor of Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll. These proposals will be submitted to the International Astronomical Union for formal approval.
Artemis II is scheduled to conclude with a splashdown off San Diego at 8:07 p.m. EDT on April 10. Recovery teams will transport the astronauts to the USS John P. Murtha for post-flight medical evaluations before returning to NASA Johnson Space Center.
The Artemis program is preparing for increasingly ambitious lunar missions to expand scientific research, explore economic opportunities, and lay the groundwork for future crewed missions to Mars.
