As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its independence, NASA said the Artemis II mission has carried a collection of historic mementos. Among them was a flag originally designated

For the first time since Apollo 17, astronauts traveling beyond low Earth orbit photographed the moon at close range on Monday, as astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen transmitted the first crewed lunar images of the modern spaceflight era from aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II mission.

The Artemis II launched from Florida, sending a crew of four astronauts on a mission around the moon, but before this could happen the Apollo 17 crew landed on the moon 50 years ago.

The Apollo missions to the moon established many of the guidelines that we still use for space travel today, with some modern tweaks.

NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed flight around the moon in more than 50 years, has been a feast for the eyes. See the stunning images from the mission.

At this point in NASA’s human spaceflight story, researchers have a substantial amount of material – documents, artifacts and images – with which to tell the stories of past flights to space. But with NASA’s Artemis II mission around the Moon now in the books,

Artemis II’s safe return renews focus on the few remaining Apollo Moonwalkers as NASA moves closer to its first human Moon landing since 1972

The longtime Lake Forest resident and restaurant operator recorded a message before his death last year for the astronauts, cheering their achievement. During their lunar flyby, the Artemis II crew broke Lovell's Apollo 13 record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth.

What began as a mission to land on the moon became history’s most harrowing space rescue after a technical failure forced the crew of Apollo 13 into a 200,000-mile race for survival.