President Trump said late Monday he will speak to the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission, after they looped around the moon in a record-breaking voyage.
The four astronauts — three Americans and one Canadian — traveled farther from Earth than any human beings in history earlier Monday, reaching a maximum distance from Earth of 252,756 miles, passing the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970 by over 4,000 miles. They also became the first humans to see parts of the far side of the moon with the naked eye.
The Orion spacecraft is now headed back toward Earth, with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean planned for Friday. The Artemis II is a test mission in NASA’s bid to return humans to the surface of the moon for the first time in over half a century.
This is a breaking story; it will be updated.