April 7 (UPI) -- The four-astronaut Artemis II crew was heading home early Tuesday on the final leg of its 10-day voyage after completing a historic lunar flyby capped by a phone call from President Donald Trump.
Trump spoke with the Orion crew Monday night after the spacecraft completed its seven-hour lunar observation period and began its return to Earth.
"Today, you've made history and made all of America really proud, incredibly proud," Trump told NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen as they floated in the Orion capsule.
Day six of the mission saw the crew complete the seven-hour lunar flyby -- the first since 1972 -- at 9:35 p.m. EDT, hours after their spacecraft had reached 252,756 miles from Earth, the farthest humans have ever traveled from the planet.
"There's nothing like what you're doing, circling around the moon for the first time in more than half a century and breaking the all-time record for the farthest distance from planet Earth -- humans have never seen anything quite like what you're doing," the president said, thanking each astronaut individually, including Hansen, calling them "modern pioneers."
