HOUSTON, April 7 — After traveling farther from Earth than any humans before them, the four-member Artemis II crew turned their Orion spacecraft toward home Monday night, concluding a lunar flyby that delivered unprecedented views of the Moon’s far side and a rich week of observations. The flight — NASA’s first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo — used a free-return lunar trajectory and set a new distance record while preparing the agency for future lunar landings near the Moon’s South Pole.
The crew — three Americans and one Canadian — experienced a total solar eclipse from orbit as the Moon briefly blocked the Sun. They spotted Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn against the black sky, and could make out the Apollo 12 and 14 landing sites, stirring reminders of the Apollo era more than 50 years ago. During the mission, Orion reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometres) from Earth, exceeding Apollo 13’s 1970 record by 4,101 miles (6,600 kilometres).
NASA relied on the same free-return manoeuvre used by Apollo 13 after that mission’s oxygen tank explosion ended its landing attempt — a gravity-assisted figure-eight that requires less fuel and automatically puts the spacecraft on a course back to Earth once it swings around the Moon. Artemis II’s seven-hour close-approach and observation window was the highlight of an almost 10-day test flight that is scheduled to end with a Pacific Ocean splashdown on Friday.
At its nearest, Orion came within 4,067 miles (6,545 kilometres) of the lunar surface and reached speeds of about 5,052 kilometres per hour at closest approach. The astronauts photographed more than two dozen targets using professional Nikon cameras and even iPhones to study impact craters and other features. Much of the mission’s closest approach and the moment of greatest distance occurred while the crew was out of radio contact; when communications resumed an Earthrise revealed Asia, Africa and Oceania as Mission Control called out, “We are Earthbound and ready to bring you home.”
Flight controllers in Houston flipped their mission patches to mark the return leg. President Donald Trump phoned the crew after the flyby and called them “modern-day pioneers.” Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972 and lays groundwork for upcoming missions: Artemis III, planned for next year, will practice docking with lunar landers in Earth orbit, and Artemis IV is slated to follow in 2028 with a two-astronaut landing near the Moon’s South Pole. (AP)
Original Source: https://theshillongtimes.com/2026/04/08/historic-flight-artemis-ii-breaks-apollo-13s-distance-record-with-moon-flyby/
Category: INTERNATIONAL
Tags:
Publish Date: 2026-04-08 02:08:00
