After ten days in deep space, including humanity's first crewed flight past the Moon in over 53 years, four astronauts are coming home. NASA's Artemis II mission is set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, April 10, and here is everything you need to know to watch it.
When Is Splashdown?
NASA's Artemis II mission is scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 pm EDT (5:07 pm PDT) on Friday, April 10. For Indian viewers, that translates to early Saturday morning, April 11, at approximately 5:37 am IST.
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Where To Watch
Live return coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. EDT and can be watched on NASA+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix, HBO Max, Discovery+, Peacock and Roku. NASA's own YouTube channel will also carry uninterrupted live coverage. One can follow @NASAArtemis on X and Instagram for real-time updates.
What Happens During Those 13 Minutes?
This is the most critical stretch of the entire mission, and the most dangerous. The spacecraft is expected to travel from 400,000 feet to the Pacific Ocean in just 13 minutes at speeds approaching 35,000 feet per second.
As Orion descends through about 400,000 feet, the spacecraft will enter a planned six-minute communications blackout at 7:53 pm. as plasma forms around the capsule during peak heating. The crew is expected to experience up to 3.9 Gs during a nominal landing profile. For those six minutes, Mission Control in Houston, and the world, will hear nothing.
After emerging from blackout, Orion will jettison its forward bay cover, deploy its drogue parachutes near 22,000 feet at 8:03 pm, and then unfurl its three main parachutes around 6,000 feet at 8:04 p.m. to slow the capsule for splashdown.
Who Is On Board?
The four Artemis II astronauts are NASA's Reid Wiseman (Commander), Victor Glover (Pilot), Christina Koch (Mission Specialist), and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen (Mission Specialist). They launched on April 1 and have together travelled approximately 695,000 miles.
ALSO READ: NASA's Artemis II Crew Captures Stunning Pictures Of Milky Way, Lunar Surface From Deep Space
What Happens After?
Within two hours of splashdown, the crew will be extracted from Orion by helicopter and flown to the USS John P. Murtha, where they will undergo post-mission medical evaluations before flying back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
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