Artemis II: What the Crew Saw at the Moon's Far Side

On April 6, 2026, four humans did something no one has done since Apollo 17 in December 1972. They flew around the Moon — and for the first time in history, they looked directly at the far side with their own eyes. This is what Artemis II revealed.

The Mission That Put Humans Back at the Moon

Artemis II launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 1, 2026. The crew — NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit in over five decades.

Every crew member carries a piece of history. Victor Glover became the first person of color to travel to the Moon's vicinity. Christina Koch became the first woman. Jeremy Hansen became the first non-American. And Reid Wiseman became the oldest person to make the journey. Together, they represent a new era of human spaceflight — one that doesn't look like any mission that came before it.

The spacecraft, NASA's Orion capsule riding atop the Space Launch System, followed a free-return trajectory around the Moon. There was no landing. The mission's purpose was reconnaissance, testing, and bearing witness.

Closest Approach: 4,066 Miles from the Far Side

On Flight Day 5 — April 6, 2026 — the Orion capsule reached its closest point to the Moon at approximately 7:02 p.m. EDT. The capsule passed just 4,066 miles (6,544 kilometers) from the far-side lunar surface. That's close enough that the entire disk of the Moon filled the windows like a basketball held at arm's length.

From that vantage point, the crew could see from pole to pole. They could see terrain no human eye had ever observed directly from space — the heavily cratered highlands of the far side, ancient impact basins, and regions that Earth-based observers can never glimpse because the Moon always turns the same face toward us.

The flyby window lasted nearly seven hours, from 2:45 p.m. to 9:40 p.m. EDT. During that time, the crew had 30 designated scientific targets to observe and photograph.

What They Saw: Ancient Craters and Hidden Basins

The far side of the Moon is dramatically different from the near side. Where the near side has large, dark, flat volcanic plains called maria, the far side is almost entirely covered in rugged highlands and craters stacked on top of craters. It has been battered far more intensely, and its crust is thicker.

The crew's primary geological target was the Orientale Basin — a nearly 600-mile-wide (965-kilometer) impact crater that straddles the boundary between the near and far sides. It formed approximately 3.7 to 3.8 billion years ago when a large object slammed into the Moon, creating a series of concentric rings visible as dramatic ridges. From Earth, only the edge of Orientale is ever visible at all, and only under ideal conditions. From Orion, the crew saw the entire basin for the first time with human eyes.

Astronaut Jeremy Hansen described the view during an interview from space: "Not the moon that I'm used to seeing."

Another key target was Hertzsprung Basin, a nearly 400-mile-wide ancient ringed crater on the far side. Unlike the relatively fresh Orientale, Hertzsprung has been worn down by billions of years of subsequent impacts, offering a striking contrast in geological age.

The crew also photographed Ohm Crater, notable for its bright ray system — the long, pale streaks of ejected material that spray outward from a fresh impact — and Pierazzo Crater, which sits inside the debris field of the Orientale impact and shows dark streaks of lunar rock that once melted and refroze.

About 20 percent of the far side was sunlit during the flyby, and the low-angle sunlight created long shadows that enhanced surface relief, making ridges, slopes, and crater rims easier to detect than under direct overhead illumination.

A Solar Eclipse Seen From Space

Near the end of the observation window, the Artemis II crew witnessed something no human has ever seen from this vantage point: a total solar eclipse as viewed from beyond the Moon.

At approximately 8:35 p.m. EDT, the Sun moved directly behind the Moon from Orion's perspective. The eclipse lasted close to an hour. During that time, the lunar surface went mostly dark, and the Sun's corona — its faint, extended outer atmosphere, normally invisible from Earth except during a total eclipse — appeared as a glowing halo around the Moon's edge.

The eclipse was invisible from Earth. Only the four astronauts aboard Orion could see it. The crew used the opportunity to observe and describe the corona's structure and to watch for flashes of light from meteoroids striking the darkened lunar surface — small impacts that could help scientists understand the rate of space rock bombardment the Moon experiences.

A Distance Record and a Return

As Orion completed its loop around the Moon, the spacecraft set a new human spaceflight distance record. At 7:05 p.m. EDT on April 6, Orion reached its maximum distance from Earth: 252,757 miles (406,773 kilometers). This surpassed the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles, set in 1970, by more than 4,100 miles.

The entire round-trip journey covers approximately 695,000 miles from launch to splashdown off the coast of San Diego. The crew will reenter the atmosphere at roughly 25,000 miles per hour — one of the fastest reentries ever attempted by a crewed vehicle.

Why This Matters

Artemis II does not land on the Moon. There is no moonwalk, no sample collection, no surface operations. But that is not its purpose. Its purpose is to prove that Orion and the Space Launch System can carry a crew safely to the Moon and back — and to give four humans a direct view of the world humans plan to return to.

Artemis III, currently in planning, will land near the lunar south pole. The data gathered from Artemis II — the geological observations, the corona measurements, the performance of Orion's systems — will all feed directly into that mission.

For now, four people are looking at the Moon's hidden face. The next humans to do so may be standing on it.