Washington DC, April 5 (ANI) — NASA announced that Artemis II passed the two‑thirds point of its trip to the Moon on Sunday, during flight day four.
In a post on X, the agency said the Orion crew reviewed plans for studying the Moon during their upcoming flyby and practiced manually controlling the spacecraft. “There are no words,” astronaut Reid Wiseman wrote on X.
The four‑person crew began a historic lunar flyaround on Saturday, traveling farther into space than any humans have gone since Apollo. Three Americans and one Canadian are scheduled to make their closest approach on Monday, when they will photograph the lunar far side as they pass. It is the first time a crew has headed toward the Moon in more than 53 years.
NASA says Artemis II is on track to set a distance record for humans by traveling beyond 252,000 miles from Earth before performing a U‑turn behind the Moon and returning home without entering lunar orbit; the current record was set by Apollo 13.
The Canadian Space Agency highlighted Canada’s role as astronaut Jeremy Hansen makes the trip; Hansen is the first non‑U.S. citizen to fly on a crewed lunar mission. “Today he is making history for Canada,” Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campbell said.
The crew — Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch — are the first people to travel to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Koch and Glover are the first woman and the first Black astronaut, respectively, to make the trip.
Artemis II is scheduled to conclude with a Pacific Ocean splashdown on April 10. The mission is a key early step in NASA’s plan for a sustainable lunar presence and supports the agency’s goal of a crewed landing near the lunar south pole by 2028.
(ANI)
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