I am obviously MUCH older than you, Orion !!

But then excitement isn’t governed by age

Day 9

Artemis II Daily Schedule and Moon Mission Daily Agenda

Live Coverage

Live Views From Orion - images not available at times but rare

Track Artemis - This is a 3D view driven by real time technology. Left click hold to swing around. Click on bottom left for more tracking options

Mission Updates

* Check Day 8 for changes / updates

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Artemis II Re-entry April 10th at 8:07 pm EST. Weather remains a go

This is the most dangerous part of the flight with the heat shield experiencing approximately 5000 degrees F while entering earth's atmosphere. After traveling beyond the Moon, nearly 270,000 miles from Earth, the capsule will work up a speed of 25,000 miles per hour upon entry slamming through Earth’s atmosphere. Friction will cut that speed to just 300 miles per hour in a matter of minutes. The result is heat – and a lot of it

Orion and the Service Module will separate before re-entry leaving the service module to burn up in earth's atmosphere. Orion has to position itself at the right angle so not to bounce off earth's atmosphere thrown back into space or burn up entering earth's atmosphere. There is a 3 to 4 minute blackout period during this time

How it Works - A 2014 video a NASA engineer explains the heat shield on Orion


Splashdown

Once in earth's atmosphere traveling at 300 mph a series of parachutes will deploy slowing the craft down to around 17 mph splashing down in the Pacific ocean off the San Diego coastline at 8:07 pm EST. After splashdown recovery efforts begin. The USS John P. Murtha will be onsite to start the recovery efforts

Artemis 2 Earth re-entry, splashdown and recovery plan explained by NASA

Good video of Recovery

Launch to splashdown


Re-entry of the Orion capsule will start around 7:45 pm EST. Communications between Orion and Mission Control on re-entry will be going on all day preparing. If you have followed any of the Artemis II mission this is something you will want to watch. It will be shown live on NASA's Live Coverage as well as live return coverage on NASA+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix, HBO Max, Discovery+, Peacock and Roku starting at 6:30 p.m EST

That 3 to 4 minute blackout period will feel like hours not only to the crew, Mission Control but all watching