Thursday was the Artemis II crew’s last full day in space as they began final preparations to come home. NASA officials say they are confident the Orion capsule’s heat shield will protect the astronauts during the high‑speed reentry that ends the nine‑day mission.
The Orion crew is roughly halfway through the trip back to Earth. When the capsule hits the upper atmosphere it will be traveling about 24,000–25,000 miles per hour and encounter temperatures near 5,000°F. The heat shield, mounted on the bottom of the crew module, is the primary defense against those extreme temperatures.
NASA investigators reviewed a problem that occurred on Artemis I, the uncrewed 2022 test flight, when parts of the heat shield behaved unexpectedly—material ablated in chunks instead of in a controlled way. Engineers say adjustments to how Orion will approach reentry and other procedural changes address the issue. NASA emphasizes that, even during Artemis I’s anomaly, a crew would have remained safe, but the agency still treated the event seriously and developed fixes for future flights.
In the final hours before splashdown, the crew will stow equipment, review procedures and perform trajectory correction burns to set up the correct entry angle. The service module — provided by the European Space Agency and responsible for propulsion and support during the mission — will be jettisoned and burn up on reentry. Orion will then rely on its heat shield to keep the interior cool enough for the astronauts.
Mission controllers and recovery teams will watch the descent as the capsule deploys parachutes in three stages and makes a controlled splashdown off the California coast. Navy ships will carry recovery teams to retrieve the crew and bring them home. NASA officials and family members say the safe return of the astronauts is the top priority, and the agency is closely monitoring every step until the crew is back on a recovery vessel.