by Wen Tsui
LOS ANGELES, April 6 (Xinhua) -- NASA's Artemis II mission broke the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth on Monday, surpassing a mark set 56 years ago, while contending with repeated equipment failures throughout the flight.
The crew of Integrity, as the astronauts named their capsule, exceeded the previous record of 400,171 km set by the Apollo 13 crew on April 15, 1970, at 1:57 p.m. EDT (1757 GMT), according to NASA.
The four crew members are NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. They launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1 on a 10-day test flight around the Moon, the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The capsule reached its maximum distance of 406,771 km from Earth at 7:07 p.m. EDT (2307 GMT).
"Congratulations to this incredible crew and the entire NASA team, our international and commercial partners, but this mission isn't over until they're under safe parachutes, splashing down into the Pacific," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote in a post on X.
The mission had been delayed nearly seven months from its planned September 2025 launch date. Engineers needed additional time to address concerns about the capsule's heat shield and life-support systems after problems were found during an earlier uncrewed test flight in 2022. NASA flew the mission with the existing heat shield after modifying how the capsule would re-enter Earth's atmosphere, a decision that drew criticism from independent engineers before launch.
Shortly after reaching orbit on April 1, the crew lost two-way contact with Mission Control. NASA said the fault was traced to a technical problem at a ground station and was resolved quickly with no effect on the mission.
The mission's onboard toilet broke down three separate times during the flight. The first breakdown, caused by a jammed fan in the toilet's waste system, occurred within hours of launch. Mission Specialist Koch, who described herself as the mission's space plumber, worked with Mission Control to fix it. A second breakdown on April 4 led flight director Judd Frieling to tell reporters that engineers suspected ice was blocking a pipe used to flush liquid waste out of the capsule.
On April 6, Mission Control ordered the crew to stop using the toilet altogether. "We just wanted to let you know that the toilet right now is 'no go' for use, as we stick with a predetermined limit," capsule communicator Jenni Gibbons told the crew, directing the astronauts to use portable disposal bags for liquid waste instead.
During the lunar flyby, Canadian astronaut Hansen informed Mission Control that the crew proposed naming two previously unnamed craters on the Moon. The first would be "Integrity," after their capsule, located on the Moon's far side, and the second "Carroll," near the boundary between the Moon's near and far sides. Both proposals require formal approval by the International Astronomical Union, the body responsible for naming features in space.
The crew also heard a recorded message from Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who flew to the Moon as command module pilot on Apollo 8 in 1968 and died on Aug. 7, 2025, at age 97. "Good luck and Godspeed from all of us here on the good Earth," Lovell said in the recording, according to NASA's mission blog.
On April 3, the White House proposed cutting NASA's annual budget by 23 percent, from 24.4 billion U.S. dollars to 18.8 billion dollars, for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2026, according to SpaceNews. The proposal would cut NASA's science programs by 47 percent and cancel more than 40 missions.
The Planetary Society, an advocacy group for space research, said the proposal "needlessly resurrects an existential threat to U.S. leadership in space science and exploration." Congress rejected an identical proposal last year and will have the final say on the new budget.
Artemis II is following a free-return trajectory similar to the one utilized by Apollo 13. The mission does not include a lunar landing. Splashdown is scheduled for April 10 in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, California. ■