NASA’s Artemis II begins historic moon flyby

The Artemis II crew is on course to make history Monday for traveling around the far side of the moon. NASA on Monday morning released a recording of astronaut Christina Koch talking with Mission Control in Houston about the Orion Spacecraft entering the moon’s sphere of influence. The crew is now falling toward the moon rather than rising away from earth which is quite a milestone, Koch said. She also described being able to see the Earth out one window of the Orion and the moon out of another at the same time. The moon definitely appeared bigger than the Earth at that point, she said. 

What was the previous record for the farthest distance a human traveled from Earth? The four-person crew will break the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970, according to NASA. The Orion spacecraft is scheduled to reach its maximum distance from the Earth, about 252,575 miles, just after 7 p.m. EST. The 10-day mission marks the first U.S. trip around the moon in over 50 years.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Muncy’s report on The World and Everything in It about the moon launch.