After its history-making journey around the Moon, NASA’s Artemis II mission is set to return to Earth late tonight. The Orion spacecraft carrying astronauts Reed Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen is scheduled to touch down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 a.m. ET. NASA will stream the landing on YouTube and its NASA+ website, as well as on Netflix and HBO Max. The official telecast will begin at 6:30 PM ET.
After leaving Earth on NASA’s Super Heavy-Lift SLS rocket and spending nine days in space, the most dangerous part of the Artemis II mission is still ahead. The Orion spacecraft will take approximately 13 minutes to complete reentry. During that time, it will be subjected to temperatures of up to 5,000 °F (2,760 °C).
Reentry is dangerous for any crewed spacecraft, but is of particular concern here due to the “skip reentry” during the Artemis 1 mission. At that time, the Orion crew spacecraft briefly used its own lift to “drop” out of Earth’s upper atmosphere before re-entering for final descent, suffering additional burns in the process. NASA investigated for months and determined the craft was safe to fly, but Artemis II would take a more gradual approach to Earth in hopes of minimizing exposure to excess heat.
Still, this is the first time in 53 years that NASA will need to guide a human crew back from the Moon. However, once all is said and done, the Artemis II crew will have traveled 695,081 miles (1,118,624 km), taking amazing photos along the way and reminding the world what is possible when nations work together.
<a href