Artemis II and its crew will conduct its historic lunar flyby on Monday afternoon, April 6, traveling farther from Earth than any human in space, surpassing Apollo 13's mission in 1970, and observing the moon's lunar surface for nearly six hours.

The mission is expected to last about 10 days, with the crew reaching the moon's vicinity on around day five or six before returning to Earth.

Lunar love knows no bounds. Now hurtling home from the moon, the Artemis II astronauts took a poignant page from Apollo 8 earlier this week, proposing deeply personal names for a pair of lunar craters.

The USS John S. Murtha has departed a San Diego naval base with more than 100 NASA personnel on board as part of the mission to recover the Artemis II astronauts and the Orion capsule after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

The Artemis II astronauts fielded questions during an in-space news conference Wednesday, April 8, aboard their Orion spacecraft Integrity.

Crowds are gathering along the San Diego coast as the Artemis II mission prepares for its historic return to Earth. Navy crews are set to recover the Orion capsule as excitement builds around the