A new record has been set today for the furthest a human being has ever travelled from the Earth.
NASA’s Artemis II crew, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and pilot Victor Glover, embarked on a 10-day voyage to our closest neighbour this week.
As of 6am on Monday morning, the crew entered the Moon’s ‘sphere of influence’.
In doing so, the team edged past a record that has stood for nearly 56 years, previously set by the Apollo 13 team during their historic 1970 mission.
Just before 7pm the crew reached the furthest point on their journey — 252,760 miles from the Earth.
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Lunar observations began at 7.45pm, as the crew turn their attention to the Moon’s surface.
At 11:44pm, mission control will briefly lose contact with Orion as the spacecraft passes completely behind the Moon, with the lunar body blocking all signals to and from Earth.
"It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now... It is just unbelievable," Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby.
He challenged "this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived".
Just moments after breaking the record, crew members asked permission to name two fresh lunar craters already observed.
The crew said they would like to name a Moon crater ‘Carroll’, after commander Reid Wiseman's late wife.
Commander Wiseman wept before regaining his composure and saying it is "such a majestic view out here”.
As the crew make their loop around the moon, the astronauts will "analyse and photograph geologic features, such as impact craters and ancient lava flow".
Some of the regions they will be studying are on the Moon’s far side — territory that no astronaut has seen directly before, making it an incredible feat for the Artemis crew.
Their observations and images will help inform future missions to the South Pole region of the Moon.
Studies on the astronauts will also help NASA to better understand how deep space travel affects the human mind and body, which will protect astronauts in future missions as well as to travel to Mars.
If the Artemis II crew completes their mission safely, the next step is for Artemis IV and V to become lunar landing missions, which will both happen in 2028.
