NASA’s Artemis II crew of four astronauts from the United States and Canada will return to Earth on Friday after their historic trip to the far side of the moon.
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen spent 10 days in the Orion spacecraft. They are expected to begin re-entry at 7:33 pm ET with a splash of 8:07 pm.
NASA has a live feed of when the crew lands in the Pacific Ocean later today. The Orion spacecraft is expected to land on the coast of San Diego, California.
The Artemis II mission marks the first time humans have landed in lunar orbit in more than 50 years. The crew traveled further from Earth than any human before, reaching an estimated 252,760 kilometers from our planet. That’s the same distance as traveling between New York City and Los Angeles about 100 times, only for the astronauts inside a capsule with 330 cubic feet of living space, about the size of two vans.
The purpose of the Artemis II mission is to collect data and information that will help NASA prepare for future lunar missions and landings – astronauts are putting the Orion spacecraft through planned tests to test how it works with crew in deep space. This involves checking systems to communicate with our partners on the ground, making changes to the route, and making safe re-entry and splashdowns.
A splashdown can be one of the most dangerous moments of the entire job. On the Artemis I mission in 2022, which had no crew, Orion’s heat shield unexpectedly malfunctioned on its return to Earth. The heat shield was made of AVCOAT – a substance designed to slowly dissipate and protect the crew from temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere – but the shield was charred and cracked in places, which shouldn’t have happened.
If humans had been aboard Artemis I, they would have returned safely, NASA said. The agency is also conducting a thorough investigation into how the heat shield was damaged in the first place. However, heat protection is still on the mind as people around the world hope to see the four return safely.
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The crew left for Earth on April 1, and the astronauts quickly encountered unpleasant conditions, including problems with Microsoft Office and the toilet. But these early moments were easily overshadowed by the wonder of the images and information the crew brought back from the moon. You can now see new images from the lunar flyby on the dark side of the moon.
The astronauts also named new craters, including one named after Wiseman’s late wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 46.
The crew was also able to see a total solar eclipse just a few thousand kilometers from the moon, a unique location that no astronaut had ever seen before.
“It wasn’t just an eclipse where the Sun was hidden behind the Moon,” explained Koch, the crew’s mission specialist. “We could also see the light of the world, the light of the Sun shining on the Earth, wrapping the Moon in a soft and borrowed light.”
Some live streams are broadcast here.
