The crew of Artemis II mission are entering a pivotal phase of their journey, as they prepare to swing around the Moon and head back towards Earth. Now on the fifth day of their 10-day mission, the four astronauts are already witnessing views no human has ever seen.
Travelling aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft, the crew woke to find themselves roughly 346,000 kilometres from Earth and closing in on the Moon, just more than 100,000 kilometres away. It is a distance that underscores both the ambition - and the risk - of humanity’s return to deep space.
Their wake-up call came from Charlie Duke, one of the last astronaut to walk on the Moon during Apollo 16. Now aged 90, he offered a message of encouragement from Earth, reminding the crew that the world is watching as they build on the legacy of the Apollo era.
Earlier in the mission, the astronauts captured a striking image of the Moon featuring the vast Orientale Basin - a huge, ringed crater rarely seen in full. While spacecraft have photographed it before, this marks the first time the entire formation has been observed directly by human eyes.
“It’s a reminder,” one NASA scientist noted, “that even after decades of exploration, the Moon still has new perspectives to offer.”
That sense of discovery is expected to deepen during the upcoming flyby. For several hours, the crew will observe the lunar surface with the naked eye as well as onboard cameras, documenting features for further study.
The next milestone comes as the spacecraft enters the Moon’s “sphere of influence” - the point at which lunar gravity begins to dominate over Earth’s. It is a subtle but crucial transition that will shape the spacecraft’s path around the Moon.
The flyby itself is expected to last around seven hours, beginning at approximately 2:45pm eastern U.S. time (18:45 GMT) and concluding at about 9:20pm (01:20 GMT). NASA plans to broadcast the event live on its website, as well as on YouTube, Amazon and Netflix, with commentary from both the astronauts on board and experts at Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
Mission teams on the ground say preparations are complete. “We’re all extremely excited,” said a senior NASA official, noting that this will be the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.
There is also an element of uncertainty. Scientists admit they cannot predict exactly what the astronauts will see.
If all goes to plan, the crew - Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen - could become the most distant humans ever to travel from Earth.
They are expected to surpass the long-standing record set during Apollo 13, when an emergency forced astronauts to loop around the Moon and return home safely.
The Artemis II flight follows a similar “free-return” trajectory - a path designed to bring the spacecraft back to Earth even if major systems fail.
The Artemis II mission is a crucial part of NASA’s long-term plan to return humans to the Moon and eventually travel to Mars. Unlike later missions, this one will not land, but instead aims to prove that the systems needed for deep-space travel are ready.
Future missions in the Artemis programme are expected to build on these results, gradually increasing complexity - from orbital operations to eventual lunar landings later in the decade.
For now, however, all eyes are on the crew as they approach the far side of the Moon - a place unseen from Earth, where communication will briefly fall silent and the spacecraft will rely entirely on its own systems.
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The 4-person crew in the Orion capsule on NASA's Artemis II space shuttle carried out a key thruster firing on Thursday, sending the ship past the main orbit of the Earth towards the moon, in the hope of beating Apollo 13's distance in 1970, as they took pictures using phones and cameras.
Four astronauts blasted off from Florida on Wednesday on NASA's Artemis II mission, a high-stakes voyage around the moon that marks the United States' boldest step yet toward returning humans to the lunar surface later this decade in a race with China.
NASA is preparing to launch Artemis II with four astronauts on a roughly 10-day mission around the Moon, marking its most ambitious human spaceflight in decades and a key step towards returning astronauts to the lunar surface ahead of China.
NASA is aiming to launch its Artemis 2 mission on Wednesday (1 April), sending astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon, officials confirmed. According to the Space Administration, the launch window is due to open at 23:24 GMT, with additional opportunities to 6 April if delays occur.
The four astronauts selected for NASA’s Artemis II mission have arrived in Florida, entering the final phase of preparations for the first crewed journey towards the Moon in more than five decades
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