The Artemis II crew took this photo of the Moon from the window of the Orion spacecraft on April 6. Photo: NASA

The Artemis II crew has now officially traveled farther from Earth than any previous human mission. On Monday afternoon at approximately 1:56 p.m. EDT,, the crew surpassed the Apollo 13 record from 1970 of 248,655 miles, NASA confirmed. 

Artemis II astronauts Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, and Victor Glover of NASA and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency launched last Wednesday and are now conducting a lunar flyby. 

The crew shared their observations of the lunar service with NASA teams. The crew suggested an unnamed crater be called Integrity to be named after their spacecraft, and another crater to be named Carroll in honor of Weisman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. 

The spacecraft is set to have a loss of communications when the crew travels behind the Moon, around 6:44 p.m. EDT on Monday, lasting around 40 minutes. The spacecraft is set to reach its maximum distance at 7:07 p.m. on Monday at 252,760 miles from Earth. 

“As we surpass the distance humans have ever traveled from Earth we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration,” CSA Astronaut Hansen said. “We will continue our journey into space even farther from Mother Earth succeeds in pulling back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly, choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next, to make sure this record is not long-lived.” 

Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell recorded a special message for the astronauts before he died in 2025 — passing the torch to the astronauts and encouraging them to enjoy the historic views.