Inching closer to Earth, the astronauts of the Artemis II mission marshaled their lunar rover for its upcoming “fireball” return and reflected on their historic trip around the Moon, describing it as surreal and profound.
At dawn on Thursday, the penultimate day of their flight, humanity’s first lunar explorers in more than half a century were less than 240,000 kilometers (150,000 miles) from home, with the odometer counting down.
“We have to go back. There is a lot of data that you have already seen, but all the good things come back to us. There are many more photos, many more stories,” said pilot Victor Glover, adding that “going through the atmosphere in a fireball is also profound.”
Being cut off from all of humanity for nearly an hour while behind the moon was especially “surreal,” according to Commander Reid Wiseman.
“There’s a lot our brains have to process…and it’s a real gift,” Wiseman said Wednesday night during the crew’s first news conference since before takeoff.
On Monday, while out of contact behind the moon, Wiseman, Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen became the most distant humans in history, reaching a record 406,771 kilometers (252,756 miles) from Earth before heading back. When they came out from behind the Moon, they experienced a wonderful total solar eclipse, since the star blocked the Sun from their perspective.
The launch from Florida on April 1 reduced the amount of illumination on the far side of the moon, Glover noted, but the eclipse was the consolation prize “and was one of the greatest gifts.”
Friday’s reentry and splashdown in the Pacific off the coast of San Diego—processes as dynamic and dangerous as takeoff—were now on everyone’s minds. The recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha, was already at sea, with a squadron of military planes and helicopters ready to join the operation.
It’s the first time NASA and the Department of Defense have partnered for lunar crew reentry since Apollo 17 in 1972. Their Orion capsule will return at full speed, entering the atmosphere at an expected speed of 10,657 meters (34,965 feet) per second — or 38,367 km/h (23,840 mph) — not a record, but still dizzyingly fast.
Mission Control will pay close attention to how the capsule’s heat shield holds up. During Orion’s only test flight to the Moon, carried out in 2022 without a crew, said shield suffered considerably more damage than expected from the 2,760 degrees Celsius (5,000 degrees Fahrenheit) of re-entry.
Instead of replacing Artemis II’s heat shield, which would have forced another long delay, NASA adjusted the capsule’s descent through the atmosphere to reduce exposure to extreme heat. Next year’s Artemis III mission and subsequent ones will fly with redesigned heat shields.
Artemis III will have astronauts practice docking their capsule with one or two lunar landing modules in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV in 2028 will attempt to land two astronauts near the Moon’s south pole, setting the stage for what NASA hopes will be a sustainable lunar base.
NASA officials have been reluctant to provide their risk assessment figures for the nearly 10-day mission, acknowledging that launch and entry are the biggest threats.
“We’re already in the home stretch,” said NASA’s Lakiesha Hawkins. “We’re coming to the end of the mission and obviously getting the crew back home and getting them to land safely is an important part of the risk we still have ahead of us.”
