Overview
- The four-person crew, which flew behind the Moon on Monday, reached a maximum distance of about 252,756 miles from Earth, breaking Apollo 13’s 1970 mark by roughly 4,100 miles.
- After a planned 40-minute communications blackout behind the Moon, Mission Control regained contact as Orion began the trip home on a free-return path that uses lunar gravity to aim for a Pacific splashdown on Friday.
- Astronauts captured the first direct human views and photos of the Orientale Basin and other far-side targets, relaying real-time descriptions to NASA scientists in Houston.
- Moments after surpassing the record, the crew proposed names for two fresh craters—Integrity, after their spacecraft, and Carroll, honoring the commander’s late wife—requests NASA said it will submit to the International Astronomical Union.
- NASA frames Artemis II as a shakedown cruise to validate Orion and operations beyond low Earth orbit, with the images and data now downlinking expected to guide upcoming Artemis missions toward a lunar south pole landing.