Artemis 2’s trip around the moon enters the home stretch — here’s how to watch the splashdown

The crew of NASA’s round-the-moon test mission crossed the halfway point between the moon and Earth today on their homeward journey — and they’re picking up speed as they zero in on a spot off the coast of California for Friday’s live-streamed splashdown.

At the end of what so far has been a successful Artemis 2 mission, the astronauts are counting on the Orion space capsule’s propulsion system, heat shield and parachutes to work perfectly.

“We’re going to come into the atmosphere at almost 40 times the speed of sound, and then we will slow down to a 20-mile-an-hour touchdown into the Pacific,” NASA pilot Victor Glover told a congressional delegation today during a space-to-ground Q&A. “The heat shield and the parachutes are going to get us nice and slow. … We can’t wait to see the dive team and the Navy that are going to pick us up.”

Glover and his crewmates — mission commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been testing Orion’s systems during a mission aimed at preparing the way for a lunar landing that could take place as early as 2028. Their 10-day trip is the first time humans have gone around the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Artemis 2 lead flight director Jeff Radigan was asked during a news briefing how Friday’s entry and descent would compare with the “Seven Minutes of Terror” experienced by NASA’s Curiosity rover during its 2012 Mars landing.

“It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right,” said Radigan, referring to the time period between the start of atmospheric entry and splashdown. Then he amended his remarks. “It’s not 13 minutes,” he said. “It’s an hour and a half of things that have to go right.”

NASA has been streaming live coverage of the 10-day mission via YouTube continuously ever since the Orion spacecraft, christened Integrity by its crew, lifted off atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket on April 1. But the space agency will boost its coverage to a higher orbit on Friday with special programming that starts at 3:30 p.m. PT. That programming will be aired on commercial streaming services as well as on YouTube and NASA+.

The show will also be aired on the big screen at the Museum of Flight’s William M. Allen Theater in Seattle. Doors open for seating at 3 p.m. The event is free for museum members and included with museum admission. Museumgoers arriving after 3 p.m. can ask for the Sunset Special to receive 50% off admission.

Here’s the schedule for the Artemis 2 homecoming. All times are PT:

4:15 p.m.: Communications handover from the Deep Space Network to the orbital Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, also known as TDRS.

4:33 p.m.: Orion’s crew module separates from the spacecraft’s European-built service module. After separation, the service module burns up in the atmosphere while the crew module orients itself for descent.

4:37 p.m.: Final trajectory adjustment burn scheduled. Orion begins a series of roll maneuvers.

4:53 p.m.: Entry interface. Orion hits the upper layer of the atmosphere at an altitude of about 400,000 feet. The spacecraft executes a “lofted entry” maneuver to help reduce its velocity. NASA optimized this “skip entry” maneuver after the 2022 Artemis 1 mission saw unexpected charring on the heat shield. The lofted trajectory helps dissipate heat more evenly.

Friction and atmospheric plasma will heat the air around the capsule to around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, creating a layer of ionized plasma that blocks radio signals. The communications blackout is expected to last about six minutes.

“The G profile will actually be very similar to what it is on launch,” Glover said. “We’ll get into the 3 G’s on the way down for a normal entry, but if it is a ballistic [entry], we could get up as high as 9, 10 G’s, which is what you pull in a fighter jet.”

4:59 p.m.: Communications with Orion expected to resume. The spacecraft’s forward bay cover is due to be jettisoned at an altitude between 36,000 and 24,000 feet.

5:03 p.m.: Drogue parachutes deploy at 22,000 feet.

5:04 p.m.: Main parachutes deploy at 6,000 feet.

5:07 p.m.: Splashdown. The main parachute will be cut, and Orion will inflate helium-filled airbags to make sure the capsule floats right side up.

Orion’s descent will be monitored from the air and sea, and recovery teams are expected to take less than two hours to extract the astronauts from the capsule and fly them via helicopter to the USS John P. Murtha, an amphibious transport dock ship.

The astronauts will undergo onboard medical evaluations, and then they’ll be brought to shore in San Diego, where they will board an aircraft that will take them to Johnson Space Center in Houston. Meanwhile, the Orion capsule will be towed back onto the USS John P. Murtha’s well deck for transport.

Friday’s homecoming will put some of the components that are built for Orion in the Seattle area to their sternest test:

• L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne facility in Redmond, Wash., provided the 12 reaction control thrusters critical for re-entry orientation, alongside eight auxiliary engines for the service module. The Redmond team played a role in the refurbishment of Artemis 2’s Orion main engine, which was originally used on the space shuttle Atlantis — and will play a bigger role in building future main engines.
• Karman Space & Defense’s facility in Mukilteo, Wash., built the thruster separation system that will be used to jettison Orion’s forward bay cover. That cover has to come off in order for the spacecraft’s parachutes to deploy, at an altitude high enough to allow the parachutes to unfurl properly.
• The Mukilteo factory also makes mechanisms for a side hatch release system that Orion’s crew could use in the event of an emergency landing condition after splashdown.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., referred to Washington state’s supporting role when she participated in today’s congressional chat with the astronauts.

“This mission is a major investment in science and a testament to human achievement,” she told the crew. “The Orion thrusters were built here in the state of Washington. And I invite you all to come and see the innovation and the people that you’ve inspired.”

Then Cantwell asked what could be learned on the moon using human eyes that can’t be learned from robotic rovers.

Glover took the microphone. “You know, I hope this really resonates because of what’s going on back there, at least what we hear about going on back home and in our communities,” he said. “I think you all can feel the energy that this mission has brought.”

He recalled that one of his friends told him, “I want to know how it feels. There’s going to be tons of pictures, but I want to know how it feels.”

“I think a rover can collect data a lot slower, but the human is going to be able to do it much faster,” Glover said. “But then they’re also going to come back and tell you how it feels, physiologically, in a technical and medical sense, but also in an emotional sense, so that we can continue to have that human connection. Not just the scientific and exploration, but the human connection.”