ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA officials said the Orion spacecraft traveled to its farthest distance from Earth on Monday, two days after breaking a record set by Apollo 13.
On Saturday, Orion, which launched atop the Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 16, surpassed the previous record of 248,655 miles from the planet, which was the farthest away from Earth astronauts Jim Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise traveled during their aborted 1970 moon-landing mission.
The uncrewed Orion, which has three mannequin passengers on board, reached 268,554 miles from Earth at 4:48 p.m. as part of the capsule’s distant retrograde orbit (DRO) around the moon, marking the halfway point of the 25.5-day mission.
