NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, carrying four astronauts on a journey around the Moon, is on course to set a new record for the farthest distance travelled by humans in space.
NASA last sent humans toward the Moon in 1972 with Apollo 17. While several spacecraft have visited the Moon since then, no crewed mission had flown there for more than five decades.
After a gap of 53 years, Artemis 2 lifted off from Florida in the United States on April 2. The spacecraft will not land on the lunar surface, but will fly around the Moon and return to Earth.
As of Saturday morning, Artemis 2 had already covered about half of the roughly 400,000 km distance to the Moon, and is expected to reach lunar orbit by Monday morning.
Apollo 17 previously travelled about 417,000 km before returning to Earth. Artemis 2 is expected to go beyond that and come back, enabling its crew to claim the record. Astronaut Victor Glover said Earth looks very small while the Moon is growing larger.
