The biggest story of the weekend unfolded roughly 250,000 miles from Earth. NASA’s Artemis II mission completed its long-awaited lunar flyby on Sunday, with the Orion spacecraft carrying three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut closer to the Moon than any crewed mission in over half a century — and farther from Earth than any humans have ever traveled, breaking a distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
The spacecraft came within approximately 4,070 miles (6,550 km) of the lunar surface, entering the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence. In the mission’s most dramatic planned moment, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with the crew at around 6:43 PM ET for approximately 40 minutes. The communication blackout occurred as the Moon itself blocked radio and laser signals between Earth’s Deep Space Network and the Orion capsule.
During those 40 minutes of radio silence, the astronauts — commander Reid Wiseman among them — were treated to never-before-seen views of the far side of the Moon. Spanish outlet El País reported that NASA had released an artist’s representation of what the crew would see: the Moon’s hidden face in the foreground, with Earth appearing as a small dot to the right, just before it disappeared behind the lunar disc.
“It’s blowing my mind,” one of the astronauts reportedly said as contact was restored. Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet confirmed the crew is now safely on its return trajectory toward Earth. The mission represents a critical milestone in NASA’s broader Artemis program, which aims to eventually return humans to the lunar surface.
