1 of 2 | NASA’s Orion spacecraft is pictured here from one of the cameras mounted on its solar array wings. The capsule is expected to return to Earth on Friday evening. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
The Artemis II crew on Friday reached the last part of their mission to travel past the moon, farther than any human has traveled from Earth before circling back home — splashdown day.
The Orion capsule carrying the four-person crew is expected to make a water landing just after 8:07 p.m. EDT on Friday evening, capping their 10-day mission to test NASA’s new spacecraft while taking the next steps to returning humans to the surface of the moon.
Thus far, the mission has been successful in most ways, but NASA engineers have noted that the most important part is the return to Earth.
“Every system we’ve demonstrated over the past nine days — life support, navigation, propulsion, communications — all of it depends on the final minutes of flight,” Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, told reporters on Thursday.
“We have confidence in the system, in the heat shield, and the parachutes and the recovery system that we’ve put together,” he said.
One of the main concerns after the Artemis I uncrewed launch was unexpected charring on the heat shield of the Orion capsule, which protects astronauts from the heat created as the spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere at 40 times the speed of sound.
A combination of adjustments to the heat shield and late mission burns to adjust the angle that the capsule reenters the atmosphere is expected to resolve NASA’s concerns after the first flight of the Artemis Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule.
NASA successfully launches Artemis II
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Artemis II crew is launched from Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, 2026. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo
