The capsule designed to carry astronauts has traveled farther than any other.
The Apollo 13 command module "Odyssey" set a record for the farthest flight from Earth at about 8:40 a.m. On Saturday, the time is 1340GMT.
On April 14, 1970, the Apollo 13 set a new record. On April 15th, the time is 01:21.
It was not registered with me then. We were so busy with our heads down that we didn't have time to think about it, according to a former flight director who helped lead Mission Control during the Apollo 13 mission. I didn't know we had gone the farthest from Earth until about a year ago. I thought we did it on a different mission.
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The original flight plan for Apollo 13 didn't have the spaceship going so far away. After a mid-flight explosion tore through the vehicle's service module, the mission suddenly switched from targeting a moon landing to returning the astronauts to Earth.
Apollo 13 was able to reach the distance because of the need to use the moon's gravity to slingshot the craft back to Earth.
The Artemis I flight profile wasn't designed to break the record. It did so because of NASA's actions.
"Artemis I was designed to stress the systems of Orion and we settled on the distant retrograde orbit as a really good way to do that." We were able to pass the Apollo 13 record when we were above the moon. It was more important that we push the boundaries of exploration and send spaceships farther than we had before.
The Apollo 13 distance was not the destination of the spaceship. The Artemis I capsule is expected to reach its maximum distance from Earth at 4:06pm. On Monday, the time was 2106GMT. From there it will travel halfway around the moon until firing its orbital maneuvering system engine to leave the retrograde path and return to Earth.
NASA sent people to the moon.
Artemis I has a number of connections to the 1970 mission.
The stresses a crew member would experience on a flight to the moon and back are what the instrumented manikins are used for. The emergency procedures to transfer power from the Apollo lunar module batteries to the command module were written by the late Arturo Campos.
The electrical power subsystem manager for the lunar module, who died in 2004, and his colleagues in the Mission Evaluation Room and Mission Operations Control Room were awarded the Presidential medal of freedom for their efforts.
The Apollo 13 astronauts still hold the Guinness World Record for "farthest distance from Earth" despite the fact that "Moonikin" is not a real person. When NASA launches its next Artemis mission, it may change that.
Laura Rochon, a NASA's public affairs specialist, told collectSPACE.com that they might or might not break Apollo 13's human spaceflight distance record. A flyby of the moon is followed by a high Earth circle. The total distance from Earth to the moon is anywhere from 221,500 miles at perigee to 252,700 at apogee, with altitudes ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 miles on the far side of the moon.
A NASA craft that once carried a crew and has since traveled well beyond the Apollo 13 distance from Earth is currently in a heliocentric position. If the Apollo 10 lunar module had been designed to carry humans to the Sun after it was used by the Apollo 10 crew, it would be the current record holder.
Haviland Digital helped support the Artemis I coverage. The team produced and supported titles such as "Last Man on the Moon" and "Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo"
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