The Orion capsule has reached the midpoint of its uncrewed mission around the Moon, travelling more than 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometres) beyond the far side of the Moon.
The previous record for the farthest a human-rated spacecraft has travelled was set in 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission that saw humans walking on the Moon for the first time. The spacecraft carrying these astronauts travelled 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometres) from Earth.
Instead of three men, Orion carried three dummy astronauts, four Lego mini-figures, a cuddly Snoopy and Shaun the Sheep to this historic distance. The trial flight is part of Nasa's Artemis programme, which aims to take humans back to the Moon and establish a lunar colony in the Earth’s only natural satellite.
During this part of the mission, the spacecraft also captured imagery of Earth and the Moon together throughout the day, including of the Moon appearing to eclipse Earth.
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