HOUSTON — The countdown to NASA’s next mission to the moon is officially underway, marking a major step toward sending astronauts back for the first time in decades. A crewed launch is now just days away, and over the next two days, teams will run ...

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 four astronauts — NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen — spent Monday’s seven-hour lunar flyby taking photos and making observations from the Orion spacecraft, which they named Integrity.

A Kentuckian designed the mission patch for the four-person crew of the Artemis II moon mission. Gregory Manchess, an award-winning painter from Fort Thomas, created the patch over a two-year period.

So much for journalistic objectivity. The BBC science editor covering the launch of Artemis II couldn’t contain her enthusiasm

The Artemis II crew has traveled farther from Earth than ever before. How to see new moon photos, watch lunar flyby today. See schedule for moon mission

The Artemis II crew is now just 13,000 miles away from the moon, and about half an hour from surpassing the record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. That record, 248,655 miles, was set by Apollo 13 in 1970, according to NASA.

The Artemis II mission is the first time humans have headed to the moon since 1972. That year also marked the debut of The Godfather and the Egg McMuffin.