NASA sets record far above the moon

NASA: "4, 3, 2, 1, booster ignition and liftoff."

The crew of NASA's Artemis II lunar mission has set a new record for the furthest distance humans have travelled from Earth. They journeyed 406,773 kilometres into the depths of space, breaking the record of 400,171 kilometres held by Apollo 13 for over 50 years.

Unlike Apollo 13's record, only achieved in a life-or-death emergency manoeuvre to return to Earth following a malfunction, today's events went to plan. As the crew took the record on Integrity, the name given to their Orion spacecraft, Reid Wiseman relayed communications back to mission control.

Reid Wiseman: "From Cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the fur, the furthest distance humans have ever travelled from planet Earth, we do so in honouring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration."

From their vantage point above the lunar surface, the crew eyeballed two fresh craters and assigned them provisional names. One is Integrity after their own spacecraft, and the other Carroll, after the wife of Commander Wiseman, who had passed away in 2020 following a cancer diagnosis.

Artemis II's mission was to loop around the moon, surveying the lunar surface, and safely return to Earth. Equipped with state-of-the-art cameras and video equipment, it gathered vital data for the safety of future missions and provided telemetry and communication data for detailed analysis. With this, in 2028 NASA plans to undertake the first lunar landing since 1972.

A lunar base is also on the cards in NASA's longer-range plans. This would provide a pit stop for deep space exploration and vital support for any crewed missions to Mars. View Less