Nell Greenfield Boyce

I mean, I think everybody watching this return to Earth was sort of, you know, a little tense, a little nervous.

Even the NASA officials admitted that in a briefing the other night.

And so, you know, reentering the Earth's atmosphere was one of the most risky parts of the mission.

One of the Artemis II astronauts, Victor Glover, compared reentry to riding a fireball across the sky.

The outside of the crew capsule will be surrounded by superheated gases.

Temperatures will reach 3 to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The capsule's heat shield is critical, and while NASA found some unexpected damage to the heat shield in an earlier, uncrewed test flight...

Officials say they're confident in the solutions that they implemented before the Artemis II mission.

If all goes as planned, parachutes will deploy and the capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, California.

Nell Greenfield, Boyce, NPR News.

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During their fiery re-entry, the astronauts will be protected by their spacecraft's heat shield.

But for it to work, flight controllers have to make sure that the capsule comes in at exactly the right flight path angle.

Jeff Radigan is a NASA flight director.

He says once the capsule enters the atmosphere, communications will be knocked out for about six minutes.

Waiting to reacquire the astronaut's signal will be a tense time at mission control in Houston.

If all goes to plan, parachutes will deploy and the capsule will splash down off the coast of San Diego, California.

Nell Greenfield, Boyce.