NOTE: Live coverage of splash down will appear in the player above once an NBC News Special Report begins.
Their dramatic grand finale fast approaching, Artemis II’s astronauts aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the moon in more than half a century.
But the most nerve-racking part of the mission is still to come.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the miles melted away between the four returning astronauts and Earth.
Here’s what to expect:
When will Artemis II splash down?
NASA is targeting splashdown at 7:07 p.m. CT Friday, off the coast of San Diego.
But the final minutes will be some of the biggest.
“During re-entry, the service module will separate around 7:33 p.m. [6:33 p.m. CT], about 20 minutes before Orion reaches the upper atmosphere southeast of Hawaii,” NASA reported. “At 7:37 p.m. [6:37 p.m. CT], a final trajectory‑adjustment burn will fine‑tune the flight path before the spacecraft begins a series of roll maneuvers to safely distance itself from departing hardware. Orion will reach its maximum velocity — approximately 23,864 mph — just before entry interface.”
Here are some of the big moments to watch for, according to NASA:
How can you watch it?
NBC will air a special report close to splash down as the world watches and waits. Tune in live beginning around 7 p.m. CT.
NASA will also offer live coverage on Peacock starting at 5:30 p.m. CT. Live mission coverage is also streaming on NASA’s YouTube channel.
What are the most dangerous moments?
All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry. On the only other test flight of the spacecraft — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the moon.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 32 — or 32 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.
They didn’t plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, is completely self-flying.
Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the six minutes of communication blackout preceding the opening of the parachutes.
When will the astronauts first be seen after landing?
According to NASA, the crew will be extracted from Orion within two hours of splashdown.
“Recovery teams will retrieve the crew using helicopters, and once aboard the ship, the astronauts will undergo post‑mission medical evaluations before returning to shore to board an aircraft bound for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston,” NASA reported.
The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew’s arrival, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 34,965 feet per second — or 23,840 mph — not a record but still mind-bogglingly fast before slowing to a 19 mph splashdown.
What happened during their trip?
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn’t land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record, making Wiseman and his crew the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when they reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
During the record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the lunar far side never seen before by the naked eye and savored a total solar eclipse courtesy of the cosmos thanks to their launch date. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
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Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our blue marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Radigan said on the eve of splashdown. “It’s the first of many trips and we just need to continue on because there’s so much” more to learn about the moon.
Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain’s King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary;” Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, toilet trouble prevented the crew from using it for No. 1 most of the trip, forcing them to resort to old-time bags and funnels.
The astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space and it’s a doozy.”
Why was this mission so important?
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
“This Artemis II mission is building on the previous flight test and Artemis I mission that we’ve had. And so the goal is to have people back, landed on the moon, living on the moon, and eventually onto Mars,” Jen Madsen, the deputy manager in Mission Control at NASA, who is from Illinois, told NBC Chicago.
The Artemis II crew’s allegiance was to those next Artemis crews, Wiseman said.
“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
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