<\/span>
\n <\/button><\/p>\nFriday\u2019s reentry and Pacific splashdown off the coast of San Diego \u2014 as dynamic and dangerous as liftoff \u2014 now topped everyone\u2019s minds. The recovery ship, USS John P. Murtha, was already at sea, with a squadron of military planes and helicopters poised to join the operation. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time that NASA and the Defense Department have teamed up for a lunar crew\u2019s reentry since Apollo 17 in 1972. Their Orion capsule will come screaming back, hitting the atmosphere at a predicted 34,965 feet (10,657 meters) per second \u2014 or 23,840 mph (38,367 kph) \u2014 not a record but still mind-bogglingly fast.<\/p>\n
Mission Control will be paying close attention to how the capsule\u2019s heat shield holds up. During the only other Orion test flight to the moon \u2014 in 2022 without a crew \u2014 the heat shield suffered considerably more damage than expected from the 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) of reentry.<\/p>\n
Instead of replacing Artemis II\u2019s heat shield, which would have forced another lengthy delay, NASA tweaked the capsule\u2019s descent through the atmosphere to reduce the blisteringly hot exposure. Next year\u2019s Artemis III and beyond will fly with redesigned heat shields. <\/p>\n
Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV in 2028 will attempt to land two astronauts near the moon\u2019s south pole, setting the stage for what NASA hopes will be a sustainable lunar base.<\/p>\n
NASA officials have been loath to provide their risk assessment numbers for the nearly 10-day mission, acknowledging launch and entry as the biggest threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re down to the wire now,\u201d said NASA\u2019s Lakiesha Hawkins. \u201cWe\u2019re down to the end of the mission, and obviously getting the crew back home and getting them landed safely, is a significant part of the risk that\u2019s still in front of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew captured this view the Moon and Earth are shown on Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP) 2026-04-09T16:48:04Z HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Drawing ever closer to Earth, the Artemis II astronauts tidied up their lunar cruiser for its upcoming \u201cfireball\u201d return and reflected on their historic journey… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}