The Artemis II crew are set to return to Earth around 7:30 p.m. on Friday evening, after completing a successful 10-day flyby of the Moon.
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will parachute out of the falling Orion capsule that will bring them down to Earth, and are set to land in the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of California. The crew will then be retrieved by a team of Navy divers.
Re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is a dangerous and complicated feat, with the team facing temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit due to the speed of their descent.
© Getty ImagesThe Orion capsule carrying the crew will re-enter the atmosphere at almost 24,000 miles per hour, and will need to slow down significantly to allow the team to deploy their parachutes once they reach 6,000 feet from the surface.
Deceleration is typically achieved by using aerodynamic drag as a brake. When the unmanned Artemis I landed back on Earth in December 2022, the spacecraft dipped in and out of the atmosphere to slow its descent, which severely damaged the heat shields and caused the NASA team to redesign the flight path for the Artemis II's re-entry.
The Orion capsule will likely reach the same temperature as the surface of the sun, and the shockwave caused by the intense heat will block out all communications between the Artemis II crew and NASA headquarters for several minutes.
© AFP via Getty ImagesThe spacecraft is covered in a material named Avcoat, which is made of silica fibers that melt off during the descent and allow heat to essentially peel away from the craft. The capsule's thermal protection system will also absorb the heat and inject cool gases into its surface to regulate the temperature.
Concerns were raised after the return of the Artemis I in 2022, as its heat shield was severely damaged and chipped in more than 100 places. Former NASA astronaut Dr Charlie Camarda wrote an open letter to NASA in January, expressing his doubt about the effectiveness of the shield and pointing out its major flaws.
© POOL/AFP via Getty Images"History shows accidents occur when organizations convince themselves they understand problems they do not. This issue exhibits the same patterns that preceded past catastrophes," he wrote.
© Getty ImagesInstead of re-designing the shield, NASA decided to alter the flight path of the Artemis II to allow the spacecraft to descend at a steeper angle and a faster speed, in order to minimize exposure time to extreme temperatures.
Artemis II crew member Reid Wiseman shared that he was confident in the shield's ability to protect them on the descent. "If we stick to the new re-entry path that NASA has planned, then this heat shield will be safe to fly," he said during a press conference.
