The historic 10-day Artemis II mission, that has sent humans around the moon for the first time in over 50 years, is in its final stages.
The Orion spacecraft and its four-person crew, including Canadian Jeremy Hansen, are set to return to Earth.
Just before 7 o’clock our time tonight, Orion will enter Earth’s atmosphere at roughly 25,000 mph.
As plasma builds around the capsule, the crew will experience a roughly six-minute loss of contact with Mission Control.
Parachutes will be activated to slow the spacecraft down from its high-speed re-entry, eventually decreasing the speed to a gentle 17 mph.
Orion should then safely splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
The whole process from re-entry to splash down should only take about 15 minutes.
From there, NASA and the U.S. Navy have coordinated a detailed recovery plan.
A ship has already left from San Diego to meet the capsule at the landing site. Navy divers and MH-60 Seahawk helicopters will retrieve the astronauts within two hours of splashdown. The crew will then undergo medical evaluations aboard the ship before being flown back to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
You can follow the final descent and recovery live starting at 5:30pm our time tonight on NASA’s YouTube Channel
