Artemis II Crew Nears Far Side of Moon in Historic First Since 1972

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen are making their closest pass by the lunar surface this morning, swinging within 4,000 to 6,000 miles of the Moon and becoming the first humans to view the far side with their own eyes since the final Apollo mission 53 years ago. The moment marks flight day 6 of a 10-day mission that NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has framed as a high-stakes proof-of-concept for the entire American return-to-the-Moon program.

The physics of the far side flyby carry a built-in test that no amount of ground simulation can replicate: a planned communications blackout. At approximately 5:47 p.m. ET today, the Moon itself will block every radio frequency between Orion and NASA's Deep Space Network, cutting off all voice, telemetry, and command capability for roughly 40 minutes. For that window, Wiseman and his crew are entirely on their own. How Orion's systems perform during the blackout, and how seamlessly communications restore afterward, feeds directly into NASA's confidence calculations for Artemis III, the crewed landing mission now targeted for 2028.

About 80 minutes after the blackout ends, at approximately 7:05 p.m. ET, Orion will reach its maximum distance from Earth: 252,757 miles, surpassing the previous record by 4,102 miles. The old mark was set not by design but by emergency, when the Apollo 13 crew swung around the Moon during their 1970 abort-and-return, reaching 248,655 miles. The Artemis II crew is expected to mark the milestone with remarks around 2:10 p.m. ET, hours before the spacecraft actually crosses the threshold. Wiseman described the broader experience of approaching the Moon as "surreal" in an interview from inside the Orion capsule.

The data gathered during today's operations matters, but so does April 10, when Orion reenters Earth's atmosphere and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. The heat shield is under close technical scrutiny. After the uncrewed Artemis I mission in November 2022, NASA engineers discovered unexpected erosion of the ablative shield, which had endured temperatures of approximately 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit during reentry. After extensive post-flight analysis, NASA managers cleared the same heat shield design to fly again with crew, modifying Artemis II's reentry to use a steeper atmospheric entry angle. External temperatures this time are expected to reach approximately 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. If the shield performs within tolerance, it validates one of the most consequential pieces of hardware standing between Artemis III astronauts and the lunar surface.

Isaacman, confirmed as NASA Administrator in 2025, has been explicit about what this mission carries. NASA announced at liftoff that the four-person crew would "put Orion through its paces so the crews who follow them can go to the Moon's surface with confidence," adding that "the work ahead of us is tremendous." Isaacman has signaled that schedule slips and budget overruns for subsequent Artemis missions will not be tolerated.

Harrison Schmitt, 90 years old and one of the last people to walk on the Moon as part of Apollo 17's crew, offered the Artemis II astronauts direct counsel: "Make sure that you've got your training down pat. Be ready for anything unexpected." His crew drove approximately 19 miles across the lunar surface and returned 243 pounds of geological samples. The mission Wiseman's crew is flying now is the next step toward making that kind of science routine again, provided Orion's shield holds on the way home.