Brendan Byrne

Jeff Radigan, Artemis II lead flight director, says the whole process will take only about 13 minutes, but

All the things that have to happen include blowing the top off the capsule so that a series of parachutes can deploy.

Those parachutes will slow them down to just 20 miles per hour and they'll splash down in the Pacific.

Now, I should add,

Mission Control will lose contact with the crew for six of those 13 minutes during the reentry process.

Steve, there's always a risk when returning from space.

Mission pilot Victor Glover called it like riding a fireball through the atmosphere.

Speaking from the Orion spacecraft, Glover said that he had been thinking about this portion of the mission since he was selected for it back in 2023, and he's been looking forward to it ever since.

One thing to keep in mind, which you mentioned, Steve, is the heat shield.

This is the piece of hardware beneath the capsule that protects the crew from those extreme temperatures during reentry.

Well, NASA tested it on the uncrewed mission that came before this one, and they found the heat shield wasn't performing as designed.

So NASA and the Artemis II crew worked on a way to mitigate the risk.

What was the solution?

Wow.

Wow.

as long as they get that initial approach just right.

Well, there's a recovery team stationed on the USS John P. Murtha that will head out to the capsule.

They'll deploy a raft just outside the hatch, which they're calling the porch.

and pull the astronauts out.

They'll head back to the transport ship and then hitch a ride to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.