This past Friday NASA’s historic 10-day mission around the moon, Artemis II, came to an end, and astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft made their final descent into the Pacific Ocean. The crew, which consisted of American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, splashed down off the coast of San Diego, CA, around 8:07 P.M. EDT.
The Orion spacecraft, which the crew nicknamed “Integrity,” reentered Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour and had to withstand temperatures of up to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 2760 Celsius during the descent. When it reached below 35,000 feet, the capsule released parachutes that slowed it down to only about 19 miles per hour.
Before reentry, the Integrity crew’s capsule separates from the service module, which is used to hold fuel, oxygen, and water for the crew. The separation happened at about 7:34 P.M. EDT, then the capsule went through a 19-second “raise-burn” to refine its tilt. Integrity reentered Earth’s atmosphere at around 7:53 P.M. EDT, splashing down into the sea 13 minutes later.
“This is a perfect descent for Integrity,” commented NASA public affairs officer Rob Navias during the Artemis II reentry livestream on Friday, adding, “Everything is in great shape, and we have four healthy crew members on board.” The day before, on Thursday, the Artemis II flight director Jeff Radigan seemed confident in the landing’s success at a press conference, saying, “It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right.”
However, during those 13 minutes, superhot plasma built up and engulfed the spacecraft as it fell, causing mission control in Houston to lose contact with the crew for about six minutes before eventually regaining communication. Officials said they had a visual on the spacecraft during the blackout. After landing off the coast of California, NASA and U.S. military officials immediately went to retrieve the astronauts by helicopter and carried them to a Navy ship called the USS John P. Murtha. Koch appeared to emerge first from the spacecraft, followed by Glover, Hansen, and then Wiseman.
The crew did not immediately get to reunions with their families, however. As the crew is expected to fly from San Diego to Houston’s Johnson Space Center, where they will then finally be able to reunite with their families.
