NOTE: Live coverage of splashdown will appear in the player above once an NBC News Special Report begins.
Artemis II astronauts are scheduled to make their return to Earth in a nail-biting and nerve-racking finale for their lunar mission Friday.
What time will the world be watching their return and how can you watch it unfold live?
Here’s what to know:
What time 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.”
According to NASA, the crew won’t be extracted from Orion until as long as two hours after 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.
How to watch live
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 biggest concerns?
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.
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