On April 7, astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis 2 spacecraft held a live, audio-only conversation with colleagues on the International Space Station — a first-of-its-kind ship-to-ship call spanning the vast distance between the moon and low-Earth orbit. NASA later released an edited video of the exchange, which trimmed pauses and synced audio to footage, highlighting the historic link-up between crews so far apart.
The call connected Artemis 2’s Jeremy Hansen (Canadian Space Agency), Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman with ISS crew members Jessica Meir (commander), Christopher Williams, Jack Hathaway and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot. During the livestream the crews discussed their views, routines and small comforts of life in space; NASA’s Anil Menon and Roscosmos’ Andrey Fedyaev and Pyotr Dubrov were not on the call.
Distance made the moment notable: the teams described being hundreds of thousands of miles apart. During the broadcast the Artemis 2 crew cited a separation of roughly 232,141 miles (373,595 km), and later reached a record distance from Earth of about 252,756 miles (406,771 km), surpassing the Apollo 13 milestone from 1970.
The tone of the conversation was warm and conversational. “It’s fun to be up in space with you at the same time,” Hansen said. Meir reflected on perspective and privilege, saying the crews know “how fortunate all of us are as humans, to come up here and look down at the Earth from above,” and that they wanted to hear how that view differed from orbiting the moon. Koch, who has performed multiple all-woman spacewalks with Meir, said she misses the ISS but is struck by “how much blackness there was around” Earth and how that emphasizes humanity’s shared fragility.
The call also touched on operations and sensations of flight: Wiseman described how Earth “grew rapidly in the window” during orbital maneuvers, and recounted a joking moment when Hansen quipped they might “run right into it.” Glover noted one practical difference on Artemis 2 — the lack of an extra module to “deconflict” activities — meaning the crew must carefully coordinate every movement and task.
Crews traded lighter details too, swapping menus. Artemis 2’s food included sweet-and-sour chicken, Kona coffee with cream, butternut squash and spicy green beans; ISS crew members mentioned spicy green beans and mango salad. Astronauts said spicier foods are popular because taste sensations can fade in microgravity.
The exchange was brief but symbolic: a demonstration of crew camaraderie and a glimpse of everyday life on missions that are expanding human presence farther from Earth than in decades.
Original Source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/watch-the-farthest-ever-crew-call-in-space-between-artemis-2-and-the-iss
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Publish Date: 2026-04-14 17:30:00
