NASA’s Artemis II mission reached a historic milestone on Monday, April 6, as the four-person crew broke the 56-year-old record for the greatest distance any humans have traveled from Earth. According to The Verge, the Orion capsule surpassed the 248,655-mile mark set by the Apollo 13 mission, cementing the crew’s place in space exploration history.
Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen marked the occasion with a crater-naming ceremony while in lunar orbit. The crew chose to name one of the craters "Integrity" after their spacecraft. During the NASA livestream, Jeremy Hansen shared a tribute to a personal loss: "A number of years ago, we started this journey and our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie."
The mission, which launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 2, 2026, aims to test hardware and systems necessary for a permanent human presence on the Moon. While the crew continues to observe the lunar surface, they also received a lighthearted message from flight controllers, which is assumed to be the longest person-to-person message ever sent.
Advancing the Human Landing System
While the Artemis II flight progresses smoothly, NASA is simultaneously refining the architecture for future lunar landings. Ars Technica reports that the space agency is looking to accelerate the development of the Human Landing System (HLS), which will utilize vehicles from SpaceX and Blue Origin.
NASA has removed the requirement for these landers to dock with the Lunar Gateway in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, a move intended to streamline the process. Lori Glaze, who leads NASA’s deep space exploration program, confirmed that the agency is reviewing proposals to simplify requirements. "They’ve each brought in some good proposals. They’ve taken this very seriously. They’ve brought proposals to us about simplifying requirements so that they can really pull things in and accelerate," Glaze told Ars Technica.
While NASA has not yet released official details on the revised plans, reports suggest that Blue Origin is exploring options that avoid orbital refueling, while SpaceX is evaluating the possibility of docking Starship with Orion in low-Earth orbit. The current Artemis II mission is scheduled to conclude with a return to Earth in 10 days, following a critical reentry test through the atmosphere this Friday.
