NASA’s Artemis II mission is nearing its conclusion. After a 10-day journey orbiting the Moon and venturing further into space than any humans before, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen are on their way back to Earth aboard their spacecraft, Orion, named ‘Integrity’.
Return to Earth Today:
The crew capsule will detach from its service module before plunging into Earth’s atmosphere at approximately 25,000 mph. This descent will subject the heat shield to temperatures reaching around 2,760 °C (5,000 °F). A six-minute communications blackout will follow, after which 11 parachutes will deploy in stages, slowing the capsule to a gentle 17 mph impact with the water off the coast of San Diego, California.
This mission, marking the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in December 1972, has been filled with historic firsts. Koch became the first woman to journey to the vicinity of the Moon, Glover the first person of color, and Hansen the first non-American citizen to do so. The crew also broke the record for the greatest distance ever traveled by a human from Earth, surpassing the mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
Recovery teams from the U.S. Coast Guard and NASA are already positioned within a 550-mile splashdown zone off San Diego. Once safely aboard the recovery vessel, each astronaut will undergo medical checks before being airlifted to a military base in San Diego and subsequently to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, their last point of departure on March 27th.
This successful mission paves the way for NASA’s next objective: a crewed lunar landing, currently slated for 2028, 56 years after the last human footprints graced the Moon’s surface.
Schedule and How to Watch Live:
NASA is broadcasting every moment of this mission, from pre-launch fueling to splashdown, across multiple free platforms. For your convenience, here is the video providing the splashdown broadcast, along with the times:
- Pacific (PT): 5:07 PM (Today, April 10)
- Eastern (ET): 8:07 PM (Today, April 10)
- London (BST): 1:07 AM (Saturday, April 11)
- Madrid (CEST): 2:07 AM (Saturday, April 11)
- UTC / GMT: 00:07 (Saturday, April 11)