Artemis II astronaut reveals the terrifying moment he feared his crew would be lost in space ‘after straying too far from Earth’

Commander Reid Wiseman said he feared the Artemis II crew might not return to Earth when their distance from the planet briefly exceeded the maximum figure given by mission control. The moment came during the crew’s lunar flyby, as they set a new record for the farthest distance humans have travelled from Earth.

Mission control had cited 219,667 nautical miles as the maximum distance, but the spacecraft’s reading rose to 219,669 before it began to fall, confirming the crew was heading home. Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen launched on 1 April 2026 and travelled 700,237 miles in total before splashing down in the Pacific on 10 April as scheduled. Hansen said the crew had discussed the possibility of a catastrophic error before launch and had accepted the risks.