NASA’s Artemis II mission will re-enter Earth on a more direct trajectory than the one taken by Artemis I to reduce the chances of damage to the heat shield endangering the four astronauts.
“We are using a high entry profile. The entry duration is about 14 minutes, instead of 20, which induces a much lower thermal load on the shield to allow it to perform its function with maximum efficiency,” NASA space narrator Rob Navias said in the official broadcast this Friday.
The reentry of the astronauts on our planet is one of the most delicate moments of the mission, since the heat shield suffered greater than expected damage when the unmanned Artemis I mission, which orbited the Moon in 2022, returned to Earth.
“Instead of an entry range of 3,178 nautical miles (5,885 kilometers), we are aiming for a maximum range of 1,701 miles (3,150 kilometers) to our splashdown area off the coast of San Diego,” Navias added.
Reducing the distance traveled by the crew module will prevent, according to NASA, it from overheating more than it should, despite the fact that it will be exposed to temperatures of 2,700 degrees Celsius as it passes through the atmosphere.
Artemis I opted for an entry that kept it in the Earth’s atmosphere for 20 minutes, which caused larger than expected shield fragments to break off.
Although NASA said it would not have posed a risk to the crew, it admitted it will readjust it for future missions.
“For Artemis III and later missions, we are redesigning the heat shield and manufacturing process to have a material that is more porous from the start and allows for more efficient gas dissipation,” Navias explained.
The astronauts’ splashdown is scheduled to occur at 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time (00:07 Saturday GMT) in the Pacific Ocean.
Before, they will enter the atmosphere at more than 40,200 kilometers per hour (about 25,000 miles), at which point they will lose communications for six minutes, and begin to decelerate at a rate of up to four times the force of gravity, until deploying several parachutes in their final stage.
Last Monday, Artemis II became the first manned mission to reach the orbit of the Moon, a milestone that precedes NASA’s goals of returning humans to the surface of the satellite in 2028.
