Transport & space · April 2026

Artemis II crewed lunar flyby

People fly around the Moon for the first time since 1972.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen flew Orion around the Moon, reaching 406,771 km from Earth, farther than any humans before them. They splashed down on April 11, 2026.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia Source

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

International Space Station 1998
Apollo 11 Moon landing 1969

Watch

Artemis II Launches Astronauts to the Moon (Official NASA Recap)NASA · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Objects launched into space Latest: 4.51k per year (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Selected milestones in human travel speed Latest: 39.9k km/h (1969) Source: Wikipedia: Horse gait (gallop 40-48 km/h); Wikipedia: List of speed records in rail transport