Artemis 2 mission update arrives from an astronomer who did not sleep well the night of the launch. The spacecraft launched April 1st, troubleshot a toilet light on April Fools Day as its first legitimate problem in orbit, and then pilot Victor Glover manually flew the most sensitive spacecraft he has ever touched while the people on the ground held their breath.
What is it like to be approximately 406,000 kilometres from Earth, further than any human since Apollo 13 was forced to come home? That gap is roughly 6,000 kilometres, or about 100 trips between Vancouver and Toronto. The crew will see the dark side of the moon with human eyes for the first time. Photographs from satellites have covered it. Eyes have not.
This is a test drive. That is the whole point. The life support, the manual controls, the course corrections, all of it feeds into Artemis 3, which Elaina Hyde says is currently targeting 2028 for an actual landing. Catnaps of four hours. CubeSats deployed. A very full schedule for 10 days.
Topics: Artemis 2 mission update, farthest humans Earth record, Apollo 13 distance comparison, dark side moon human eyes, Artemis 3 2028 landing
GUEST: Elaina Hyde, Allen I. Carswell Observatory
Originally aired on 2026-04-02

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