After nearly 10 days in space, a record-setting trip beyond the moon, and a long arc back toward home, NASA’s four-person crew is preparing for the most dangerous part of the mission: plunging back through Earth’s atmosphere.
The reentry sequence is slated for Friday evening and is expected to unfold over several hours, testing both the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield and the crew’s endurance as they transition from deep space to a high-speed descent toward the Pacific Ocean.
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What happens during reentry?
NASA has repeatedly described reentry as the mission’s greatest remaining danger.
During the descent to Earth, there is no communication between the crew and mission control, and no option to abort the mission.
Traveling at speeds nearing 25,000 mph, the capsule must withstand temperatures approaching 5,000 degrees, hotter than molten lava, as it slams into the upper atmosphere.
Is NASA concerned?
The return carries extra scrutiny because Orion’s only previous lunar test flight, the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022, came home with more heat shield damage than expected.
Rather than replace Artemis II’s heat shield and delay the mission again, NASA changed the entry profile for this flight, shortening the spacecraft’s hottest exposure as it barrels home.
“There’s no plan B’s there,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the Free Press. “The heat shield has to work.”
Reentry is a daunting task for NASA. In 2003, one of the worst disasters in the agency’s history took place when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.
The tragedy of the Columbia was attributed to a small hole in one of the wings, which led to the shuttle’s breakup upon reentry.
That makes Friday less a routine homecoming and more a final exam for the mission, with the time frame expected to unfold steadily before accelerating into a blur.
Orion fired its thrusters at 9:53 p.m. Eastern on Thursday for a second return trajectory correction burn to fine-tune the path to Earth.
Splashdown
NASA said the splashdown is targeted for about 8:07 p.m. Eastern on Friday, with live coverage beginning at 6:30 p.m.
As Orion closes in, the spacecraft’s service module is to separate about 20 minutes before the capsule reaches the upper atmosphere southeast of Hawaii.
If needed, NASA says a final trajectory-adjustment burn will sharpen the flight path before Orion begins a series of roll maneuvers to clear itself from departing hardware. Just before the entry interface, the capsule is expected to hit its peak speed.
Then comes the violent stretch. At about 400,000 feet, plasma is expected to build around the capsule, cutting off communications for roughly six minutes during peak heating. The astronauts are expected to feel up to 3.9 times the force of gravity, which is enough to pin them to their seats.
Once Orion emerges from blackout, events will come in quick succession. The capsule is expected to jettison its forward bay cover, deploy drogue parachutes at about 22,000 feet, and unfurl three main parachutes around 6,000 feet to slow for splashdown.
Crew recovery
Within two hours of landing, recovery teams are expected to extract the astronauts, fly them by helicopter to the USS John P. Murtha, and begin post-mission medical checks before the crew heads back to Houston.
The crew — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — has already become the first humans in more than a half-century to travel to the moon, and this week, they broke the Apollo 13 distance record by reaching 252,756 miles from Earth.
The mission marked several milestones, including sending the first woman, the first black astronaut, and the first Canadian on a lunar mission.
ARTEMIS II TAKES HUMANITY FARTHER FROM EARTH THAN EVER BEFORE ON JOURNEY TO MOON
Additionally, astronauts reported new observations on the moon, including micrometeoroid impact flashes and color variations on the lunar surface, that will provide valuable data for future missions.
Astronauts also documented two new craters on the moon’s surface and proposed names for them: Integrity, their capsule’s name, and Carroll in honor of commander Reid Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.
