On Monday night, Elon Musk shared an external video clip of NASA’s Artemis 2 spacecraft X during its closest approach to the lunar surface, adding the caption “NASA’s Artemis approaches the moon.” The footage, captured by a camera mounted on the exterior of the Orion spacecraft, shows the moon filling the frame in stunning ways.
An update on the Artemis 2 crew
The Artemis 2 crew – commander Reed Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – made its closest approach to the moon at 7:02 pm ET on Monday, 4,066 miles above the lunar surface. This is the closest humans have been to the moon since the last Apollo mission more than 50 years ago.
Three minutes later, at 7:05 p.m. ET, the astronauts broke the all-time human record for furthest distance from Earth, surpassing the record set by the Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970 by more than 4,100 miles. Both milestones occurred when the astronauts completely lost contact with mission control, passing behind the moon for about 40 minutes without any contact with Earth.
The crew is now preparing to return to Earth.
The video shared by Musk captures something no one has seen from this vantage point in more than half a century. NASA’s Artemis II mission launched on April 1 and is scheduled to splashdown off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 pm on Friday, April 10.
This article was originally published by Men’s Journal on April 7, 2026, and first appeared in the News section. Click here to add Men’s Diary as your go-to source.