Four astronauts are set to become Earth’s farthest travelled and exceed a 1970 record on the sixth day of the mission
Artemis II astronauts are on course to set a new distance record Monday when they fly by the moon without stopping there – and then swing around for planet Earth.
The four astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of the US space agency Nasa; and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – will become Earth’s farthest travelled, going 5,000 miles (8,047km) beyond the moon, exceeding the distance record set by 1970’s ill-fated Apollo 13.
Astronauts on that trip – commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert – reached a maximum 248,655 miles (400,171km) from Earth before making their turn. Artemis’s crew should exceed Apollo 13’s mission by about 4,000 miles (6,437km).
On what is the sixth day of a lunar mission that has re-invigorated Nasa’s space exploration program, the Orion capsule’s roughly six-hour flyby on Monday promises views of the moon’s far side that were too dark or too difficult to see by the Apollo program astronauts who preceded them more than half a century ago.
