Artemis II crew sets new human distance record, eclipsing Apollo 13's 56-year mark

Artemis II’s four-person crew traveled 252,756 miles from Earth on their circumlunar flight, surpassing the 248,655-mile record held by Apollo 13’s Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise since April 1970. The new mark held for almost exactly 56 years and edged the previous one by roughly 4,000 miles, achieved on a free-return trajectory that used lunar gravity to swing Orion back toward Earth.

The milestone arrives as the Apollo generation thins out: only five Moon-flown astronauts remain alive, all in their 90s, while the Artemis II crew is in their 40s and 50s. Future Artemis missions targeting the lunar surface won’t need to fly as far past the Moon as Artemis II did, so this particular distance record may persist for some time even as crewed lunar activity resumes.

Fred Haise, interviewed by Ars, expressed contentment about passing the record on, framing it as a natural and welcome handoff to a new generation of lunar explorers.