A historic achievement has been recorded in space: the astronaut crew of the “Artemis II" mission has broken the record for the greatest distance humans have traveled from Earth. In doing so, they surpassed the previous record held for 56 years by the famous “Apollo 13" mission in 1970.
The record of “Apollo 13" stood at 248,655 miles from Earth (approximately 400,170 kilometers). The current crew passed that point at 8:56 pm Israel time.
According to the operational plan, the “Orion" spacecraft is expected to continue moving farther away to a record distance of approximately 406,789 kilometers from Earth-about 7,000 kilometers farther than the previous record. This peak distance is expected to occur tonight at 2:07 a.m.
The U.S. space agency (NASA) launched the four astronauts about five days ago from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is the first crewed flight toward the Moon since the “Apollo 17" mission in December 1972, and it is considered a critical milestone in the ambitious program to return humanity to the Moon and establish a permanent base there.
The current mission does not include a lunar landing; rather, it is intended to test the durability of the “Orion" spacecraft and its advanced life-support systems under extreme conditions. The crew is expected to orbit the Moon and reach a distance of more than 7,400 kilometers beyond the far side of the natural satellite before the spacecraft performs a return maneuver and lands in the Pacific Ocean in about five days.