NASA’s Artemis II is about to reach a huge milestone — the crew’s closest pass to the moon — and you can watch it all go down live here.
Four astronauts — Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Commander Reid Wiseman — are making history, heading to the moon for the first lunar mission in more than 50 years … and this flyby is the closest they’ll get.
It’s a major flex for space travel too — they’re going farther than any humans ever have, beating the record set by Apollo 12. Their Orion spacecraft is now deep in the moon’s orbit following Wednesday’s lift-off, officially feeling more pull from the moon than the Earth.
Next up — flying over old landing spots of Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, then a loop around the far side of the moon — with a 40-minute blackout, when communication back to Earth goes totally dark.
The flyby wraps around 9:20 PM ET tonight, with the crew set to head back to Earth and splash down in the Pacific near San Diego on April 10. Total mission time is just over nine days.
So far, it’s been smooth sailing — and if it stays that way, this is one giant step closer to humans not just visiting the moon … but actually living there to carry out research and technology development.
