Artemis II astronauts pass half-way point on way to Moon
The Hindu
Artemis II astronauts reach halfway to the Moon, with the lunar flyby milestone celebrated by mission control.
The four Artemis astronauts have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon on the way to their planned lunar flyby, NASA said on Friday (April 3, 2026) evening.
“You are now closer to the moon than you are to us on Earth,” mission control told the astronauts at around 11 p.m. (0400 GMT), according to the space agency’s official live broadcast.
“We all kind of had a collective, I guess, expression of joy at that... We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now, it is a beautiful sight,” said astronaut Christina Koch replied.
The milestone was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes after liftoff, according to the NASA official broadcast.
The U.S. space agency’s online dashboard showed that the Orion spacecraft carrying the astronauts is now more than 219,000 kilometres from Earth.
“We’re halfway there,” NASA posted on social media.
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