By T.J. Muscaro
HOUSTON—Humanity’s first adventure to the moon in more than 50 years is complete.
Artemis II, NASA’s 10-day test flight around the moon, concluded just after 8 p.m. ET on April 10 when the Orion spacecraft gently parachuted into the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
Inside that spacecraft, named Integrity, were NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. In the course of 13 minutes, they discovered, as Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan described it, “what it’s like to be that comet.”
Floating in the calm seas, they were once again embraced by Earth’s gravity after pushing farther from her surface than any other astronauts, and seeing things no human eye had seen.
They carried a wealth of scientific information, from even more photographs of the moon to biological experiments aimed at understanding how deep space affected the human body, as well as the data and condition of the Orion spacecraft itself. NASA officials and mission leaders have said over and over again that all of this information was crucial to ensuring the success of Artemis III, Artemis IV, and all future missions.
Integrity began to take the form of that comet at approximately 7:53 p.m. as it began penetrating the atmosphere 400,000 feet up and more than 1,700 miles downrange from its target landing side.
It separated from its European-made service module, which provided propulsion, power, and life support during the historic journey, 20 minutes earlier.
The astronauts inside were back in the orange pressure suits they wore during liftoff and strapped into their seats, falling backward and upside down to ensure the heat shield was in front, and they could see the horizon out the windows.
Integrity became enveloped in a ball of fire and plasma as the friction with the planet’s layers of gas built up. It reached a max speed of 24,661 miles per hour, approximately 130 mph short of the record speed set by Apollo 10 in 1969.
Its heat shield reached temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and this entry path was designed to be much shorter than the one for Artemis I to limit the heat shield’s exposure to those maximum temperatures as much as possible.
The capsule entered a communication blackout less than 30 seconds into re-entry, due to interference from the plasma buildup. That loss of signal lasted six minutes.
While the crew was trained to take manual control, Integrity’s computer completed the maneuver that needed to hit the atmosphere at a precise angle and perform multiple roll reversals to both slow down and offload energy from the heatshield.
The astronauts rode their man-made comet in comfortable temperatures inside their pressure suits and were subject to 3.9 Gs of force. That is 3.9 times the gravitational force a person normally feels on Earth at sea level.
When Integrity regained communication with Mission Control, it was already down to 150,000 feet and slowing down. Three minutes later, it was moving slower than the speed of sound.
Eruptions of applause could be heard when the drogue shoots deployed, then the pilot parachutes, then as the three giant main parachutes deployed and gracefully dropped Integrity into the water. The moonship that at one point pushed 25,000 mph, dropped into the sea at only 20 mph.
The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha was already in position, and the crew is expected to be extracted and transferred aboard in the next one to two hours.
