HOUSTON: The four Artemis astronauts have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon on the way to their planned lunar flyby, NASA said on Friday evening.

"You are now closer to the moon than you are to us on Earth," mission control told the astronauts at around 11 pm (0400 GMT), according to the space agency's official live broadcast.

"We all kind of had a collective, I guess, expression of joy at that... We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now, it is a beautiful sight," said astronaut Christina Koch replied.

The milestone was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes after liftoff, according to the NASA official broadcast.

The US space agency's online dashboard showed that the Orion spacecraft carrying the astronauts is now more than 219,000 kilometers (136,080 miles) from Earth.

"We're halfway there," NASA posted on social media.

The spacecraft's next milestone will be entering the lunar sphere of influence, set to take place on day five of the flight, according to NASA.

The astronauts -- Americans Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian Jeremy Hansen -- are now on a "free-return" trajectory, which uses the Moon's gravity to slingshot around it before heading back towards Earth without propulsion.

Artemis

Artemis astronauts pass half-way point on way to Moon