Artemis 2 Orion set to splash down near San Diego
NASA's Artemis 2 mission is on its final day, with the Orion spacecraft, carrying astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, approaching Earth and expected to splash down near San Diego later that day after racing home at more than 7728km/h.
Their heat shield will do its job protecting them from the intense re-entry heat, always a nail-biter moment in space travel.
Service module jettison, plasma blackout, parachutes
Orion's descent will be packed with precision: first, it will ditch its service module and hit the atmosphere at nearly 38640km/h.
There will even be a six-minute blackout as plasma surrounds the capsule — pretty wild!
Then at about 22,000 feet, parachutes will deploy to slow everything down for a safe ocean landing.
Recovery teams will be ready and waiting to bring everyone back on land. Mission accomplished!