Overview
- Orion is on its return path following Monday’s far‑side flyby, with course‑correction burns done and the crew preparing the capsule for reentry.
- Splashdown is scheduled for Friday, April 10 at 8:07 p.m. ET off San Diego, and the U.S. Navy’s USS John P. Murtha is sailing to the recovery zone.
- The crew—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen—are running deep‑space checks that include a radiation shelter drill and manual piloting tests.
- NASA released new views from the passage, including Earthrise‑style photos and a nearly 54‑minute total solar eclipse that exposed the Sun’s corona, alongside notes on fresh craters and color bands seen on the Moon.
- Engineers will closely watch Orion’s Avcoat heat shield during reentry after a 2024 inspector general report on Artemis I found chunks of material were lost on the uncrewed return.