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NASA’s Orion spacecraft is about to set record for distance from Earth

The old record for a vehicle designed to carry astronauts to deep space and return them to Earth was set in 1970

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November 25, 2022 at 5:53 p.m. EST
A portion of the far side of the moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this image taken on the sixth day of the Artemis I mission. (NASA)
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Ten days after launching from the Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Friday entered a distant orbit around the moon, completing yet another key milestone in a mission that space agency officials say has gone exceedingly well so far.

Orion’s thrusters fired at 4:52 p.m. Eastern time for a 1½ minutes, putting the craft into an orbit some 40,000 to 50,000 miles above the lunar surface. That orbit will place Orion on a path to break the record for the farthest distance from Earth traveled by “a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return to Earth.” The current record of 248,655 miles was set by Apollo 13 in 1970, NASA said in a statement.