HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard Artemis II mission turned their spacecraft toward Earth on Monday night after completing a lunar flyby, marking the first crewed mission to travel to the moon since the Apollo program and setting a new distance record for human spaceflight.
The four-person crew—three Americans and one Canadian—traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the record set during Apollo 13. During the flyby, astronauts observed the moon’s far side, captured images of lunar features, and witnessed a total solar eclipse as the moon blocked the sun from their vantage point.
The crew conducted a seven-hour observation period, photographing craters and geological formations, including the Orientale Basin, while using onboard cameras and mobile devices. They also viewed landing sites from Apollo 12 and Apollo 14.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen followed a free-return trajectory, a flight path that uses the moon’s gravity to guide the spacecraft back toward Earth without requiring additional fuel for course correction. The spacecraft lost communication with mission control while passing behind the moon before reestablishing contact and beginning its return.
Former astronaut Jim Lovell, who died in 2025, recorded a message that mission control transmitted to the crew before the flyby. The astronauts also carried a patch from Apollo 8, the first mission to send humans around the moon.
Donald Trump spoke with the crew after the maneuver, calling them “modern-day pioneers.” The mission is expected to conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean later this week.
The flight serves as a precursor to future missions, including Artemis III, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface near the moon’s south pole.