Artemis II Astronauts Just Broke Distance Record

The four Artemis II astronauts have now traveled farther from our planet than any other Earthlings in history. At around 2pm, just ahead of their seven-hour lunar flyby, the astronauts passed the distance record of 248,655 miles set by Apollo 13 astronauts James Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise in April 1970. Mission Control expects Artemis II to surpass that record by more than 4,100 miles, the AP reports. NASA says the Orion spacecraft will reach its maximum distance from Earth at 7:07pm Eastern.

• In other milestones, the lunar observation will begin at 2:45pm and the crew will see a 53-minute total solar eclipse beginning at 8:35pm. CNN reports. The space agency's livestream is here. NASA says "the spacecraft will enter a planned communications blackout" from 6:44pm to 7:25pm as Orion passes behind the moon.

The astronauts began their day with the song "Good Morning" and a pre-recorded message from Lovell, who died in 2025 at age 97, NBC News reports. "Welcome to my old neighborhood," the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 veteran told the crew in the message recorded two months before his death, recalling how Apollo 8 gave humanity its first close look at the lunar surface and Earth in the distance. "I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon," he said, urging them not to get so busy that they "forget to enjoy the view." Commander Reid Wiseman called it an "awesome message" and said it was "very cool to hear him welcome us to the neighborhood."

• The crew—Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen—now has a tightly choreographed job: turn that view into data. They're aiming to document 30 scientific targets during a roughly seven-hour lunar flyby, snapping images and making real-time visual observations. Working in rotating pairs, one astronaut will photograph the surface while the other offers naked-eye descriptions of craters, ridges, and other features, then swap roles after about an hour to stay sharp.
• High on the list: two massive impact scars that help tell the moon's long story. The Orientale basin, about 600 miles across and some 3.8 billion years old, still preserves clear structures from the colossal strike that created it, spanning from the moon's near side onto the far side. The crew will also examine the Hertzsprung basin on the far side, a roughly 400-mile-wide crater whose features have been worn down by later impacts. Comparing the relatively intact Orientale with the more battered Hertzsprung could give scientists new insight into how the lunar landscape ages over billions of years.