NASA’s Artemis II moon mission is on track for Friday splashdown
SMRTR summary
Four astronauts hurtling through space at 24,000 miles per hour will attempt one of the most dangerous parts of their lunar journey Friday—coming home. The Artemis II crew faces what flight director Jeff Radigan calls "13 minutes of things that have to go right" as their Orion capsule plunges through Earth's atmosphere toward a Pacific Ocean splashdown.
The stakes couldn't be higher. If the spacecraft hits the atmosphere even one degree off its planned angle, the heat shield could fail catastrophically—a concern that emerged after the previous uncrewed mission revealed unexpected vulnerabilities.
"They're going to feel and hear when all the various chutes deploy," Radigan said, describing the dramatic sequence that will slow the capsule from screaming reentry speeds to a gentle 17-mile-per-hour splash. Within an hour, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen should be safely aboard the USS John P. Murtha.
For NASA, Friday represents a make-or-break moment for the entire Artemis program's future.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Scientific American.
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