Space

How far will the Artemis II crew travel into space?

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by Michael Bartiromo - 04/04/26 10:49 AM ET

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by Michael Bartiromo - 04/04/26 10:49 AM ET

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(NEXSTAR) – The four astronauts who make up NASA’s Artemis II crew are the first to embark on a mission to the moon in over half a century. But once they complete their flyby, they’ll also earn the rare distinction of having traveled farther into deep space than anyone on Earth.

The Orion spacecraft, currently carrying the astronauts on their mission, is expected to travel thousands of statute miles (as opposed to nautical miles) farther than any human-crewed spaceflight. NASA has previously said that the exact distance could depend on factors surrounding the rocket’s launch, but revealed this week that the Orion and the four astronauts within — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hanson of the Canadian Space Agency — are expected to travel 252,799 statute miles from Earth.

The crew is expected to reach this record distance on the sixth day of the Artemis II mission, according to NASA.

“They will devote the majority of their day to taking photos and videos of the Moon, and recording their observations as they become the first to see some parts of the Moon with their own eyes,” the space agency said.

This image provided by NASA shows a downlink image of Earth taken by NASA’s Artemis II astronaut commander Reid Wiseman inside the Orion capsule on Friday, April 3, 2026. (NASA via AP)

At 252,799 miles from Earth, the astronauts will effectively surpass the previous record for farthest human space travel set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970. Those astronauts — Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Hayes — had traveled a distance of 248,655 miles from Earth during their own loop around the moon, after their original plans to land on the lunar surface were aborted.

Speaking with NewsNation just prior to Wednesday’s launch, Sen. Mark Kelly (D–Ariz.), a former astronaut, said the Artemis II crew was preparing to make history.

“They’re going to go 4,000 miles on the far side of the moon, which is something we’ve never done before, even during Apollo,” he said. “The Apollo crews went in low moon, low lunar orbit.”

“The Apollo crews went in low moon, low lunar orbit,” the senator added. “So, this is something we’ve never done before.”

While a new milestone for NASA, the Artemis II mission won’t break the record for the farthest that a human-rated spacecraft has ever traveled into space: In 2022, the same Orion module — with no astronauts aboard — had traveled 268,563 miles from Earth during an uncrewed Artemis I test mission around the moon.

NASA, meanwhile, hopes to shatter these records in the coming decades with bolder plans for future space exploration.

“As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly challenging missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars,” the agency says.

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