It's time for Artemis II to break Apollo 13's distance record. What to know about the moon flyby

HOUSTON (AP) — The Artemis II astronauts are already the champions of a fresh new era of lunar exploration. Now it’s time to set a new distance record.

Launched last week on humanity’s first trip to the moon since 1972, the three Americans and one Canadian are chasing after Apollo 13’s maximum range from Earth. That will make them our planet’s farthest emissaries as they swing around the moon without stopping on Monday and then hightail it back home.

Their roughly six-hour lunar flyby promises views of the moon’s far side that were too dark or too difficult to see by the 24 Apollo astronauts who preceded them. A total solar eclipse also awaits them as the moon blocks the sun, exposing snippets of shimmering corona.

“We’ll get eyes on the moon, kind of map it out and then continue to go back in force,” said flight director Judd Frieling. The goal is a moon base replete with landers, rovers, drones and habitats.

A look at Artemis II's up-close and personal brush with another world — our constant companion, the moon.

Apollo 13’s astronauts missed out on a moon landing when one of their oxygen tanks ruptured on the way there in 1970.

With the three lives in jeopardy, Mission Control pivoted to a free-return lunar trajectory to get them home as fast and efficiently as possible. This routing relies on the gravity of Earth and the moon, and minimal fuel.

It worked for Apollo 13, turning it into NASA’s greatest “successful failure.” (For the record, flight director Gene Kranz never uttered “Failure is not an option.” The line is pure Hollywood, originating with the 1995 biopic starring Tom Hanks.)

Commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert reached a maximum 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) from Earth before making their life-saving U-turn on Apollo 13.

Artemis II’s astronauts are following the same figure-eight path since they are neither orbiting the moon nor landing on it. But their distance from Earth should exceed Apollo 13’s by about 4,000 miles (, 6400 kilometers).

Artemis II’s Christina Koch said late last week that she and her crewmates don’t live on superlatives, but it’s an important milestone “that people can understand and wrap their heads around,” merging the past with the present and even the future when new records are set.

During the flyby, the astronauts will split into pairs and take turns capturing the lunar views out their windows with cameras.

Because they launched on April 1, the rendezvous won’t have as much of the far lunar side illuminated as other dates would have. But the crew still will be able make out “definite chunks of the far side that have never been seen” by humans, said NASA geologist Kelsey Young, including a good portion of Orientale Basin.

They’ll call down their observations as they photograph the gray, pockmarked scenes. There's a suite of professional-quality cameras on board, and each astronaut also has an iPhone for more informal, spur-of-the-minute picture-taking.

Young’s team made lunar geography flashcards for the astronauts to study before the flight.

“They’ve practiced for many, many, many months on visualizations of the moon,” she said over the weekend, “and getting their eyes on the real thing, I’m really, really looking forward to them bringing the moon a little closer to home on Monday.”

The upside of the April 1 launch is a total solar eclipse. The eclipse won’t be visible from Earth — only from the Orion capsule — treating the astronauts to several minutes’ worth of views of the sun's outermost, radiating atmosphere, the corona.

The astronauts will be on the lookout for any unusual solar activity during the eclipse, Young said, and will use their “unique vantage point” to describe the features of the solar corona, or crown.

All four astronauts packed eclipse glasses to protect their eyes.

Orion will be out of contact with Mission Control for nearly an hour when it’s behind the moon. The same thing happened during the Apollo moonshots.

NASA is relying on its Deep Space Network to communicate with the crew, but the giant antennas in California, Spain and Australia won’t have a direct line of sight when Orion disappears behind the moon for approximately 40 minutes.

These communication blackouts were always a tense time during Apollo although, as Frieling points out, “physics takes over and physics will absolutely get us back to the front side of the moon.”

Once Artemis II departs the lunar neighborhood, it will take four days to return home. The capsule will aim for a splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego on April 10, nine days after its Florida launch.

During the flight back, the astronauts will link up via radio with the crew of the orbiting International Space Station. This is the first time that a moon crew has colleagues in space at the same time and NASA can’t pass up the opportunity for a cosmic chitchat. The conversation will include both members of the first all-female spacewalk in 2019: Koch aboard Orion and Jessica Meir, on the station.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This image provided by NASA, astronaut Christina Koch is illuminated by a screen inside the darkened Orion spacecraft on the third day of the agency's Artemis II mission on Friday, April 3, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This image provided by NASA, astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This image provided by NASA, astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

Astronauts, from left, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, pilot Victor Glover, commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialist, Christina Koch leave the Operations and Checkout building on their way to Launch Pad 39B for a planned liftoff on NASA's Artemis II moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

In this photo provided by NASA, Commander Reid Wiseman looks at the Earth from a window aboard the Orion spacecraft Integrity during the Artemis II mission en route to the moon on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This photo provided by NASA shows the moon seen from a window on the Orion spacecraft Integrity during the Artemis II mission on Friday, April 3, 2026. (NASA via AP)

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Go back through 89 previous editions of the Masters, every shot on every hole, and no one will ever match what Byron Nelson did on the par-4 seventh hole at Augusta National. Nelson drove the green and two-putted for birdie in 1937 on his way to his first Masters victory.

Share that with any of the 91 players in the field, and some explaining is required.

The hole was 340 yards and had no bunkers, only a gully in front of the green. Alister MacKenzie wanted it be similar to the “Valley of Sin” on the 18th hole at St. Andrews, so the best approach would be to run shots up to the green.

That shot by Nelson changed everything.

Horton Smith, who won two of the first three Masters, suggested the green be elevated and moved some 20 yards back and to the right, with several deep bunkers guarding the front. Augusta National's co-founders, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, agreed. They hired Perry Maxwell, renowned for his work at Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes, to do the work at a cost of $2,500.

Trees were planted on the left side to along along with those on the right, creating a tight drive. And then in a span of five Masters from 2002 to 2006, the tees twice were moved back some 40 yards. That puts it at 450 yards on the scorecard now.

Nelson wouldn't recognize it.

“You have to hit it in the fairway,” two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler said. When it was suggested that such strategy would hold true on many holes at Augusta National, he stopped walking to emphasize his point.

“No,” he said. “There's certain holes you don't have to be in the fairway. If you hit a really good tee shot (on No. 7), it's not a difficult hole. But if you miss the fairway, you can't hit it on the green.”

The par-4 seventh is called “Pampas" for the grass bush native to Argentina that grows just left of the members' tee box. No. 7 was never a favorite of Roberts and Jones. Roberts once referred to it as “the only weak hole of the 18."

It was inspired by the 18th on the Old Course, a short hole with a boomerang-shaped green that gave players the option to run the ball through the gully in front. Nelson drove the seventh at Augusta in 1937. Players still drive onto the 18th at St. Andrews, most recently Cameron Young.

With the first change, it became a tight drive that was typically a 2-iron and a wedge. That led Jack Nicklaus to once call the seventh "a beautiful little hole — a little, short par 4. You got to be pretty precise with your tee shot. Then it’s a very demanding little second shot. It’s very difficult to recover from if you get off track.”

Throw in an additional 100 yards, and it's no longer a hole where players can build some scoring momentum. Par is more than acceptable. The all-time scoring average is 4.156, the 10th-toughest hole at Augusta National.

“You're not licking your chops unless you're in the fairway,” Xander Schauffele said. “Even then, you're conceding a 20-foot putt as a really good golf shot. Maybe even before I was on tour, you could think, ‘If I birdie this, I get some momentum.’ Now it's, ‘Oh boy, I need to hit a good drive or I’m going to have to make a tough par.'”

It's not as simple as hitting a straight drive on a straight hole. The fairway cants to the right. And the trees have grown, so a tee shot too far to the right means the approach is blocked by trees.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only 20% of players have hit the seventh green after missing the green the last five years. Only No. 5 and No. 11 have a lower percentage. It can be done.

There have been some remarkable recoveries from the trees. Jon Rahm once holed out after chipping out from the trees. Joaquin Niemann once threaded a running shot through two bunkers. Those shots are rare.

“If you get out of position, it's like No. 10 at Riviera — you're trying to put it in a spot to get the next one on the green,” Harris English said. “You can get in some bad spots. But if you hit a good tee shot, it could be a birdie hole.”

Still fresh was Rory McIlroy in the left trees last year, hitting a 9-iron because of a tiny gap he saw.

His caddie, Harry Diamond, wasn't seeing it.

“He wasn't for it at all, but I just kept seeing this gap up in the trees,” McIlroy said, referring to the shot as “achievable.”

“That's when Harry does a great job and says, ‘Look, if you feel like you can see it, go ahead and hit it,’” McIlroy said. “My mindset was this is the final round of the Masters, and I have a chance to win the only tournament that ... I've wanted to win for such a long time. If that isn't the time to take a risk, I don't know when the time is.”

It doesn't decide the tournament being on the front nine. But it's no longer the “beautiful little hole” Nicklaus once described.

“Missing it left is no good. Missing it right is no good,” Brooks Koepka said. “If you get slightly out of position, it becomes a scramble for par. If I hit the fairway, I’m pretty excited about it.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Soomin Oh, of South Korea, hits her tee shot near a patch of pampas grass on the seventh hole during the Augusta National Women's Amateur golf tournament, Saturday, April 4, 2026, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

FILE - Brooks Koepka hits from the fairway on the seventh hole during the second round of the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on Friday, April 7, 2023, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)