Artemis II astronauts broke Apollo 13\u2019s distance record at 6.57pm Irish time on Monday, hugging each other in the cramped capsule as they made history for being the first four humans to travel the farthest from Earth than anyone before them.<\/p>\n
Before hitting the record, the quartet dimmed the lights in their capsule and positioned themselves by the windows in preparation to set the long-distance record as they fly by the moon without stopping \u2013 with plans to ultimately swing around for planet Earth. \u201cIt is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now,\u201d Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said over the radio ahead of the flyby. \u201cIt is just unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
He challenged \u201cthis generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived\u201d.<\/p>\n
The astronauts \u2013 Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of the US space agency Nasa<\/a>, and Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency \u2013 will become Earth\u2019s farthest travelled, going 8,000km beyond the moon, exceeding the distance record set by the ill-fated Apollo 13 in 1970.<\/p>\n The astronauts are directed to look out for unviewed lunar features often called highlands, marshes, bays, seas and lakes on the moon \u2013 though, of course, none exist in the sense they do on Earth. They are basalt lunar crater features named by 16th century astronomers, including Galileo and Johannes Kepler, as descriptive titles for what they observed.<\/p>\n Astronauts on the emergency flyby in 1970 \u2013 commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert \u2013 reached a maximum 248,655 miles (400,171km) from Earth before making their turn. Artemis\u2019s crew should exceed Apollo 13\u2019s mission by about 6,400km.<\/p>\n On the sixth day of a lunar mission that has reinvigorated Nasa\u2019s space exploration programme, the Orion capsule\u2019s roughly six-hour flyby promised views of the moon\u2019s far side that were too difficult to see by the Apollo astronauts who preceded them 56 years ago.<\/p>\n A total solar eclipse also awaited them, with the moon blocking the sun, exposing snippets of shimmering corona. \u201cWe\u2019ll get eyes on the moon, kind of map it out and then continue to go back in force,\u201d the flight director, Judd Frieling, said.<\/p>\n Koch recently said she and her Artemis II crewmates do not live on superlatives. However, she added this was an important milestone \u201cthat people can understand and wrap their heads around\u201d, merging the past with the present \u2013 and even the future when new records are set.<\/p>\n Orion was to be out of contact with mission control for 40 minutes when it is behind the moon. Nasa is relying on its Deep Space Network to communicate with the crew, but the giant antennas in California, Spain<\/a> and Australia<\/a> will not have a direct line of sight.<\/p>\n These communication blackouts were always a tense time during the Apollo missions although, as Frieling points out, \u201cphysics takes over \u2013 and physics will absolutely get us back to the front side of the moon\u201d.<\/p>\n During the flyby, the astronauts planned to take turns capturing the lunar views out their windows and on being able to make out \u201cdefinite chunks of the far side that have never been seen\u201d by humans, according to Kelsey Young, Nasa\u2019s Artemis II lunar science geologist.<\/p>\n Over the weekend, she said: \u201cI\u2019m really, really looking forward to them bringing the moon a little closer to home on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n Jared Isaacman, Nasa\u2019s administrator, told CBS News\u2019s Face the Nation on Sunday that the Artemis II astronauts \u201cabsolutely have observation responsibilities\u201d during the flyby.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a series of different cameras \u2013 they\u2019re going to get data from that,\u201d he said, adding that it would help future missions, including one aimed at returning to the lunar surface. \u201cThey\u2019ve actually had an opportunity for 3\u00bd years to train for this mission, to work with our scientists on the information they would like to gather most about the far side of the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the capsule rounds the moon, it will take four days to return to Earth. Nasa is aiming for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego this Friday, April 10th.<\/p>\n Young said the Artemis II crew would survey potential landing zones for future missions, including the mysterious Reiner Gamma formation \u2013 a bright lunar swirl associated with a localised magnetic anomaly \u2013 and photograph Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn at sunrise and sunset.<\/p>\n