NASA officials anxious but confident going into Artemis II landing

The Artemis II crew woke up 237,115 kilometres above Earth on Thursday.

By Friday night, they’ll be home.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch began their last full day in space listening to Charley Crockett’s hazy country jam Lonesome Drifter, before reviewing re-entry procedures and continuing preparations for their Friday splashdown.

NASA officials spoke Thursday afternoon, saying everything looks good for re-entry but they anticipate being anxious until it’s done.

NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya says he has high confidence in the spacecraft, including its heat shield, parachutes and recovery systems, supported by engineering and flight data.

“Tomorrow, the crew is going to put their lives behind that confidence,” he said.

But while Kshatriya said he doesn’t have any “rational” fears about the splashdown, he said, “There’s no question that I’ll be anxious.”

Each crew member’s immediate family will be in the room with mission control.

Lead flight director Jeff Radigan says he has a long checklist of things that need to happen during re-entry for the crew to land safely.

“It’s about an hour and a half of things that have to go right,” he said.

The crew members gathered together for a final video call Thursday evening to take questions from members of the U.S. Congress, when they were asked to give advice to young people who have been inspired by the mission.

“All you have to do on any given day is just get up and do your best and try to find joy in your day and try to contribute in a meaningful and positive way. And that’s it,” Hansen said.

“I think we as humans, we put too much pressure on ourselves, looking for perfection. And if you look at what we’re doing out here, it is far from perfection, but we are getting it done.”

Wiseman stressed the importance of being “willing to fail.”

“Really expanding your horizons, going out and doing things that are difficult, things that scare you, things that you might have to try a few times before you get them right … that’s a huge part of the learning process,” he said.

Orion will hit top speed Friday

NASA says Koch and Hansen started the day stowing equipment, removing cargo and locker netting and installing crew seats to ensure everything is secured. The crew is also reviewing the latest weather briefing and entry timeline and working through post‑landing procedures.

The Orion spacecraft will ignite its thrusters for a trajectory correction maneuver around 9:53 p.m. ET to fine-tune the crew’s path to Earth, during which time Hansen will monitor Orion’s guidance, navigation and propulsion systems.

NASA says Orion will reach its maximum speed of 38,405 kilometres per hour just before entering the Earth’s atmosphere, which is more than 30 times the speed of sound.

The service module will be jettisoned from the spacecraft around 7:33 p.m. ET, about 20 minutes before hitting the upper atmosphere, southeast of Hawaii.

There will be a planned six-minute communications blackout around 7:53 p.m. ET as plasma forms around the capsule when it reaches maximum heat upon re-entry, getting as hot as 2,760 Celsius.

After the blackout, Orion will start deploying a series of parachutes between about 6,700 metres and 1,800 metres above ground, with the main chutes deploying about three minutes before landing, slowing the craft to around 30 km/h before it hits the water.

Radigan says the astronauts will “feel and hear” when the chutes deploy.

Members of NASA and the U.S. military are aboard the USS John P. Murtha ship in the Pacific Ocean to assist with the splashdown — scheduled for 8:07 p.m. ET Friday off the coast of San Diego Calif. — and to get the crew members to safety.

The astronauts will start shutting systems down and orienting themselves before divers move in, once it’s safe to do so. The divers will open the Orion hatch and help the astronauts onto a large inflatable raft.

That’s where two Navy helicopters will rotate picking up all four crew members. The whole process is expected to take about an hour.

Artemis II launched on April 1 and broke the distance record Monday as the farthest humans have flown from Earth.

The spacecraft reached 406,771 kilometres on the far side of the moon, beating the previous record of 400,171 kilometres set by Apollo 13 in 1970.