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How Long and How Far Did Artemis II Fly?

Artemis II lasted 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes, covered 694,481 miles in total and carried four astronauts as far as 252,756 miles from Earth during a free-return lunar flyby.

Timeline

  1. 2026-04-01: SLS launched Orion and the four-person crew from Kennedy Space Center.
  2. 2026-04-02: Orion left Earth orbit after the translunar injection burn.
  3. 2026-04-06: The crew flew behind the Moon, reached 4,067 miles above the surface and set a 252,756-mile human distance record from Earth.
  4. 2026-04-10: Orion splashed down after 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes and 694,481 miles traveled.

Artemis II lasted 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes from its April 1, 2026 launch to its April 10 splashdown. NASA’s post-mission recap says Orion covered 694,481 miles along its full path. At its farthest point the spacecraft was 252,756 miles from Earth, a new record for human spaceflight. These numbers describe different measurements: duration is elapsed time, total distance is the length of the route, and maximum distance is the greatest separation from Earth at one moment. [1][2]

The mission began at 6:35 p.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. The Space Launch System placed Orion on its initial trajectory, and the crew spent time in high Earth orbit checking spacecraft systems and practicing operations. On April 2, Orion’s service module performed the roughly six-minute translunar injection burn that sent the crew out of Earth orbit. NASA described it as the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 that humans had departed Earth orbit for the Moon. [1][3]

Orion followed a free-return path around the Moon rather than entering lunar orbit or attempting a landing. On April 6 it entered the Moon’s sphere of influence, where lunar gravity exerted the stronger pull, and carried the crew around the far side. Closest approach came at about 7 p.m. EDT, roughly 4,067 miles above the lunar surface. The flyby observation period lasted about seven hours and included photography and crew descriptions of far-side terrain. [4][5]

During the flyby the astronauts also passed the previous human distance record. NASA records that they exceeded Apollo 13’s 1970 mark of 248,655 miles from Earth at 1:56 p.m. EDT on April 6. About five hours later, Orion reached its mission maximum of 252,756 miles. Maximum distance from Earth should not be confused with altitude above the Moon: the first measures the spacecraft’s separation from the home planet, while the second measures its clearance over the lunar surface. [2][5][6]

The total path was much longer than either of those one-time distances because it includes the outbound route, the curved passage around the Moon and the return to Earth. NASA’s milestone recap gives 694,481 miles traveled over the mission. That is why doubling the maximum Earth distance does not reproduce the official total. Spacecraft trajectories are not straight out-and-back lines, and course corrections plus the motion of Earth and Moon shape the route. [2][4]

Four people made the journey: commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. Artemis II was the first crewed flight of Orion and SLS, so much of its purpose was to test life-support, navigation, communications, manual handling and other systems with people aboard. It did not land astronauts on the Moon. NASA presents the mission as a step toward later lunar surface flights rather than a surface mission itself. [1][3][7]

The concise answer is therefore: a little over nine days, nearly 694,500 miles traveled, and 252,756 miles from Earth at the farthest point. The crew also passed about 4,067 miles above the Moon during the flyby. Reporting all four figures avoids a common source of confusion, because each answers a different question. NASA’s figures are established mission records; claims about how the flight should be ranked historically depend on whether the comparison uses elapsed time, total path, Earth distance or lunar altitude. [1][2][5][6]

Sources

  1. NASA — Artemis II mission overview
  2. NASA — Artemis II mission milestones recap
  3. NASA — Artemis II leaves Earth orbit for flight around Moon
  4. NASA — Flight Day 6 crew ready for lunar flyby
  5. NASA — Flight Day 6 crew wraps historic lunar flyby
  6. NASA — Artemis II crew eclipses farthest human spaceflight record
  7. NASA — Artemis II reference guide

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