Overview
- Orion, which carries Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, is aiming for a Pacific splashdown near San Diego at 8:07 p.m. ET Friday after a 10‑day lunar flyby.
- The return sequence calls for crew module separation around 7:33 p.m. ET, a final positioning burn near 7:37, entry interface at about 7:53 with a roughly six‑minute blackout, drogue chutes near 8:03, main chutes near 8:04, and splashdown on schedule.
- NASA says it has high confidence in the heat shield after extra testing and a lofted entry profile, a response to Artemis I’s uncrewed return that showed pitting and cracking when trapped gases in the shield material vented unpredictably.
- U.S. Navy recovery forces on USS John P. Murtha will retrieve the capsule, with a four‑person dive medical team—Lt. Cmdr. Jesse Wang, Senior Chief Laddy Aldridge, Chief Vlad Link, and HM1 Steve Kapala—opening Orion, checking the crew, and airlifting them to the ship.
- Live coverage streams on NASA+ and YouTube, as the mission’s high‑risk finale caps the first crewed lunar voyage in more than 50 years and helps validate Orion’s systems for upcoming surface missions.