Three Americans and one Canadian on Monday traveled farther from Earth than any human has ever ventured.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen—the crew of the Artemis II mission—have entered lunar orbit and are now the only people to have traveled more than 248,655 miles from Earth, a mark set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970.
The crew will spend Friday afternoon and evening photographing and observing the lunar surface as it travels around the moon, becoming the first to do so in more than half a century. The astronauts also have a chance to be the first humans to set eyes on parts of the lunar farside when they pass behind the moon around 6:45 p.m. EDT.
The crew awoke Monday to a message from Apollo 8 and 13 astronaut Jim Lovell, who recorded the message before he died in August. Hansen paid homage to Lovell and other spaceflight legends as Artemis II surpassed his decades-old distance record.
“From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration,” Hansen said. “We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear.”
He continued: “We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.”
Hansen on behalf of the crew also requested two new names for craters on the moon—”Integrity” in honor of their vessel, and “Carroll” in homage to Wiseman’s late wife, who passed away in 2020. The astronauts convened for a weightless group hug as they became emotional.
Around 1:30 p.m. EDT, the crew held a final briefing with the science officer at NASA mission control in Houston to go over the lunar flyby objectives and timeline. Teams could not know the lighting conditions they would encounter until after launch due to the changing angle of the sun as the moon orbits Earth. But they have been training for years to make the most of the opportunity under any conditions.
Fortunately, most of the lunar nearside will be illuminated as the Artemis II crew approaches. Its targeting plan focuses on 30 sunlit areas including the Orientale basin—a 600-mile-wide, 3.8-billion-year-old crater that will be fully illuminated as the astronauts pass. They will study its well-preserved rings. Another target is the 400-mile-wide Hertzsprung basin, which the astronauts will compare to Orientale.
After delivering remarks on the distance record, the crew geared up for an approximately seven-hour lunar observation period. The astronauts will pair up and take turns observing the moon for 55-85 minutes at a time through the small main cabin windows of Integrity, their Orion crew capsule, while the other two exercise or work on other tasks. Human eyes and brains are more attuned to subtle changes in color and texture than machines, giving NASA a literal new perspective on the lunar surface.
The flyby will send the crew around the lunar farside, which will appear as a waxing crescent, about 20 percent lit. However, that will give it the opportunity to look for “impact flashes” as debris slams into the moon’s surface. It will observe any dust that is produced from the impacts.
The astronauts will witness an “Earthset” as the planet drifts behind the moon from their vantage point, as well as an Earthrise. Around 7 p.m., they will pass closer to the lunar surface than humans have been in decades, coming within about 4,000 miles. By 7:07 p.m. the mission is expected to achieve its peak distance of 252,760 miles from Earth. The moon will appear to the astronauts about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length. Communications with mission control will drop out for about 40 minutes due to the moon’s interference.
Around 8:35 p.m., the crew will witness yet another marvel as the sun passes behind the moon from its vantage point, creating an hourlong eclipse. The flyby will conclude around 9:20 p.m. The crew will beam imagery back to Earth for NASA to review overnight. They will discuss together on Tuesday morning, and images will be added to this page.
The flyby will stream on NASA+ and the space agency’s YouTube channel, as well as on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and NBC Peacock.
Artemis II’s Historic Start
The lunar flyby is the most eye-catching component of Artemis II. But the astronauts have already achieved plenty on the 10-day mission, which is a test flight for future crewed lunar landings beginning with Artemis IV in 2028.
Integrity lifted off Wednesday atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The two spacecraft performed a series of engine burns to get Integrity to orbit and position it for translunar injection—the final push to send it slingshotting around the moon.
In orbit, the crew took manual control of the spacecraft for a proximity operations demonstration, steering it around another vehicle to simulate docking. That will be required for Artemis lunar landings, which will add more spacecraft to the equation. After the experiment, they released a batch of CubeSat experiments from four countries.
Astronauts also spent hours exercising on a flywheel mechanism to counter microgravity’s deteriorating effects on bone and muscle mass. Koch took on the unexpected challenge of fixing Integrity’s toilet after a malfunction prevented them from peeing.
On flight day two on Thursday, the main engine on the Orion European Service Module fired for about six minutes to complete the translunar injection, burning about 1,000 pounds of fuel to produce 6,000 pounds of thrust—enough to accelerate a car from zero to 60 mph in under three seconds.
That maneuver put Integrity on course not only for lunar orbit but the return to Earth. It will perform what is known as a free return, disengaging its propulsion systems and relying on natural gravity and tiny trajectory correction burns to pull it home. Apollo 13 is the only mission to fly around the moon in a free-return trajectory.
NASA cancelled two of three outbound trajectory correction burns on flight days three and four, determining Integrity was on course. The crew spent Friday and Saturday completing a variety of tasks, including practicing CPR and checking out the spacecraft’s medical kit.
The astronauts reached the halfway point to the moon on Friday and transitioned to NASA’s Deep Space Network, which supports long-distance calls far beyond Earth orbit. On Saturday, Koch and Hansen took turns at the controls for about 40 minutes in another manual piloting demonstration. The astronauts also reviewed the list of lunar surface features they will photograph and analyze.
Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke greeted the crew with a message on flight day five on Sunday. The astronauts spent most of the day testing their bright orange crew survival suits, removing and donning them, checking for leaks, practicing getting in their seats, and gauging their ability to eat, drink, and move around. The Artemis II crew is the first to wear the new suits, which are designed for protection during the most intense phases of the mission.
By early Monday morning, the moon’s gravitational pull on Integrity exceeded the Earth’s signalling it entered the lunar neighborhood. By Tuesday morning, it will be on its way back to Earth.
What’s Next?
On Tuesday morning, the crew will have completed its lunar orbit objectives, which in addition to lunar observation include practicing emergency procedures, testing Integrity’s radiation shelter, and conducting science experiments.
Integrity will exit the lunar sphere of influence about 41,000 miles away from the moon. Tuesday will be mostly off-duty time, save for the first of three return trajectory correction burns. On Wednesday, Wiseman and Glover will conduct a third manual piloting demonstration.
Flight day nine on Thursday, the last full day in space, will largely be spent prepping for reentry. Integrity has a heat shield that is designed to protect it and the crew from external temperatures around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it hits about 25,000 mph during reentry. The exact same mechanism flew on Artemis I in 2022. However, its heat-absorbing material unexpectedly cracked and chipped away, puzzling engineers.
Rather than replace it, NASA modified Artemis II’s reentry profile to reduce stress on the heat shield. The crew expressed confidence in the mechanism ahead of the mission. The question is whether it will be able to hit a precise entry interface, or the point the spacecraft reenters the atmosphere.
“The main thing that I want to do is I want to hit that damn entry interface right down the middle and make sure that I bring the crew home safely,” John Honeycutt, manager of NASA’s SLS program, said in March.
Ahead of the big moment, the astronauts will walk through reentry and splashdown procedures with NASA’s flight control team. They will also perform “orthostatic intolerance garment fit checks,” getting fitted for compression suits that are designed to help them avoid dizziness and lightheadedness as they readjust to Earth’s gravity.
Following a final trajectory correction burn on Friday, the crew will stow equipment, position their seats, and get back into their spacesuits. It will lose communication with mission control as superheated plasma enshrouds Integrity. When it emerges, parachutes will slow it from reentry velocity to about 17 mph. A recovery team will retrieve the crew in the Pacific Ocean.
Once Artemis II is complete, NASA will review the crew’s on-orbit experiments and recover any data they can from Integrity. The astronauts’ efforts will prepare the space agency for more ambitious Artemis missions, beginning in 2027 with Artemis III.
The 2027 mission will add one or both human landing system (HLS) vehicles being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin. The HLS spacecraft are designed to rendezvous with Orion and the crew in lunar orbit, serving as transportation to and from the lunar surface. Thursday’s proximity operations demonstration was a dress rehearsal for that maneuver, but NASA will look to practice it again before sending humans down to the moon.
If all goes to plan, the space agency will launch the Artemis IV crew to the lunar surface in early 2028. After that, it aims to conduct semiannual crewed landings and construct a permanent, $30 billion moon base.
