Nasa Artemis II crew members Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover answer questions from reporters during the first downlink event of their mission on 2 April 2026. (Photo: Nasa TV / Handout via Reuters) The Artemis II crew, flying in their Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, awoke around 2.50pm South African time on Monday, 6 April, for their sixth flight day to a recorded message from late Apollo 8 and 13 astronaut Jim Lovell.
“Welcome to my old neighbourhood,” said Lovell, who died last year at 97. “It’s a historic day, and I know how busy you’ll be, but don’t forget to enjoy the view... good luck and godspeed.”
/file/attachments/orphans/13885077_850428.jpg "A handout photo made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) shows the Moon as it draws close to the window of the Orion spacecraft on 6 April 2026, which marks the point at which the Moon’s gravity has a stronger pull on the spacecraft than the Earth's. (Photo: EPA / Nasa)")
Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen were due later on Monday to reach their maximum distance from Earth of roughly 406,778km, about 6,606km beyond the record held by Lovell and his Apollo 13 crew for 56 years.
Next, they will sail around the moon’s far side, witnessing it from roughly 6.437km above its darkened surface as it eclipses what will appear to be a basketball-sized Earth in the distant background.
/file/attachments/orphans/13882097_782442.jpg "A handout image made available by Nasa shows astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman’s photo of Earth taken from the Orion spacecraft’s window on 2 April 2026, after completing the translunar injection burn. (EPA / Nasa handout / Reid Wiseman)")
The milestone is a climactic point in the nearly 10-day Artemis II mission, the first crewed test flight of Nasa’s Artemis programme.
The multibillion-dollar series of missions aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface by 2028 before China, and establish a long-term US presence there over the next decade, building a moon base that would serve as a proving ground for potential future missions to Mars.
/file/attachments/orphans/13878705_571546.jpg "The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion capsule for the Artemis II mission lifts off from Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida, US, on 1 April 2026. The crew includes Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander, Victor Glover, pilot, Christina Koch, mission specialist and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist. The Moon flyby mission is the first human flight beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. (Photo: EPA / Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich)")
The lunar flyby will plunge the crew into darkness and brief communications blackouts as the moon blocks them from Nasa’s Deep Space Network, a global array of massive radio communications antennas the agency has been using to talk to the crew.
The flyby will last about six hours, during which the astronauts will use professional cameras to take detailed photos of the moon through Orion’s window, showing a rare and scientifically valuable vantage point of sunlight filtering around its edges.
The crew will also have the chance to photograph a rare moment in which their home planet, dwarfed by their record-breaking distance in space, will set and rise with the lunar horizon as they swing around, a celestial remix of a moonrise seen from Earth.
A team of dozens of lunar scientists positioned in the Science Evaluation Room at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will be taking notes as the astronauts, who studied an array of lunar phenomena as part of mission training, describe their view in real time. DM