HOUSTON — NASA's Artemis II mission achieved a landmark moment Monday when its four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft flew farther from Earth than any humans in history, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record while completing a dramatic flyby of the Moon's far side during the first crewed deep-space test flight in more than 50 years.

The crew — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — launched atop the massive Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, 2026. The roughly 10-day mission is testing Orion's life support systems, navigation and heat shield performance with humans aboard ahead of future lunar landings.

On April 6, the astronauts surpassed Apollo 13's record of approximately 248,655 miles from Earth around 1:56 p.m. EDT. They reached a maximum distance of about 252,760 miles later that day before executing a close lunar flyby, passing roughly 4,000 miles above the lunar surface. During the pass behind the Moon, the crew experienced an expected 40-minute communications blackout as Orion lost line-of-sight with Earth.

Mission controllers in Houston cheered when contact was re-established. Koch, serving as mission specialist, radioed back: "It's so great to hear from Earth again." The crew captured stunning images of Earth rising over the lunar horizon and the Moon's rugged far side — terrain never before seen directly by human eyes from such proximity. NASA released several of those photos Tuesday, showing the astronauts peering through Orion's windows at the distant blue marble.

The Orion spacecraft, named Integrity for this mission, performed flawlessly through key maneuvers. Shortly after launch, the crew completed a translunar injection burn that sent them hurtling toward the Moon. Additional trajectory correction burns refined the path, placing the spacecraft on a free-return trajectory........

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