To The Moon! Christina Koch Creates History, Travels Farthest From Earth Than Any Woman | Artemis II

NASA astronaut Christina Koch has created history by having travelled farthest from Earth than any other woman. Christina Koch, who is among the four astronauts on board the historic Artemis II mission, is set to travel more than 4 lakh km away from Earth as part of the ongoing lunar mission.

The Artemis II astronauts, travelling on Orion spacecraft named ‘Integrity’, has already travelled more than 3 lakh km away from the Earth.

1st Woman To Travel To Moon

Christina Koch, who is set to become the first woman to travel to the vicinity of the Moon, is an explorer and engineer who became astronaut in 2013. The 47-year-old Michigan resident has been assigned as mission specialist of NASA’s Artemis II mission. Her previous experience in spaceflight was living and working on the International Space Station (ISS) for almost all of 2019.

Spending 328 days on the ISS, she had set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

Before Koch, female astronauts had been restricted to travelling in the low-earth orbit.

Artemis II

Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft around the Moon to verify today’s capabilities for humans to explore deep space and pave the way for long-term exploration and science on the lunar surface.

Following its successful liftoff from Kennedy Space Center on April 1, 2026, the ‘Integrity’ spacecraft is carrying four astronauts on a historic 10-day mission, marking the first human journey beyond low-Earth orbit since 1972, when Apollo astronauts went to the Moon.

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