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NASA's Artemis 2 crew are scheduled to return to Earth on April 10, 2026. Entry flight director Rick Henfling, Orion deputy program manager Debbie Korth and landing and recover director Liliana Villarreal explains the plan.

Credit: NASA
Transcript
00:00Once we get through today's activities, then the focus really is going to shift to entry.
00:05And I think the first graphic is important to show up here for some of those critical events.
00:11You know, the first one that we're really going to have to keep our eye on is crew module and
00:17service module separation.
00:18That's going to happen about 20 minutes before entry interface.
00:22Once we get through the separation of the service module, we're going to do one final burn.
00:27It's called our crew module raise burn.
00:30This is typically not a burn that's going to be required, but it's our final opportunity to fine-tune our
00:36flight path angle before entry interface.
00:39So we'll perform that about 16 and a half minutes before entry interface.
00:43Once that burn is complete, the spacecraft is going to make a couple of roll maneuvers.
00:48This will provide additional separation between the service module, which is headed for a destructive entry in the Earth's atmosphere,
00:55from the crew module, which obviously contains our four astronauts.
01:00Once those rolls are complete, the crew will go visors down, and then they will be in an isolated environment
01:06in their launch and entry suit until after splashdown.
01:10We'll hit entry interface at 400,000 feet, about 1,950 miles away from our landing site.
01:2124 seconds after entry interface will hit our blackout, which is the point at which the plasma has built up
01:29around the spacecraft such that it interferes with our ability for the transmitters on Orion to transmit telemetry.
01:37This is nominal.
01:38This is nominal.
01:39It will last six minutes.
01:41Once that six-minute blackout is done, Orion is going to be at about 150,000 feet, so still falling
01:47pretty quickly.
01:48We're going to be within a couple tens of miles of the landing site by that point.
01:53And then our focus is going to shift to deploying the parachutes.
01:57We've got two drogue parachutes that will deploy.
02:00It will be about 22,000 feet.
02:03That will slow us down to about 200 miles an hour.
02:05And then we'll deploy the three main parachutes.
02:08Those are the orange parachutes you see in the image.
02:10That will happen about 6,000 feet altitude, which will slow the spacecraft and her four inhabitants down to a
02:18gentle 20-mile-an-hour splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
02:21We'll get the spacecraft powered down about 15 minutes after splashdown, and then I'm going to hand over to Lily
02:28Villarreal, our recovery director, for mission authority.
02:32Let's go to the next graphic, which has a little bit more detail on some of those events.
02:36Here's a plot of what entry is going to look like.
02:39You can see it's only 13 minutes from entry interface until splashdown.
02:42So it's going to happen pretty quick.
02:44And the flight control team here in Houston, we're going to be without comms with the flight crew for six
02:49of those minutes.
02:51So it's going to start quickly, and it's going to be over even faster.
02:58Next page.
03:01And then for a graphic of all the parachutes that are going to deploy, the first thing before we deploy
03:06the drogue parachutes,
03:08we have to jettison something called the forward bay cover.
03:11It provides the protection for all the parachutes, and that's what's going to get jettisoned at about 35,000 feet.
03:19There's a window for the jettison of the forward bay cover, so if it doesn't happen at 35,000, it
03:24can happen lower, as low as 24.
03:28And nominally, we actually expect it to happen closer to 24,000 feet.
03:34Next page.
03:36And then if you're looking for a little bit of insight on our approach trajectory, we're going to have entry
03:42interface a little bit southeast of Hawaii.
03:45And after we fly 1,957 miles over the surface of the Pacific Ocean, we'll be landing in our targeted
03:55landing site off the coast of California.
03:57Second graphic I have is a few days ago I showed you some imagery of the crew module images we
04:04got down from our first external survey that was right after the TLI burn.
04:08So we actually do another external survey on the way home.
04:12This is our inbound external inspection.
04:14So I think we've got the next slide.
04:17Yeah, so this is kind of two different views of the spacecraft.
04:21Again, did a comprehensive review of all the imagery that we were getting down off the crew module.
04:27No concerns, no issues seen that would make us have any pause for the reentry phase.
04:34Everything is in excellent condition for that entry.
04:37So that's our pretty crew module.
04:39I think we have a couple pictures of the service module as well.
04:41Yeah, so we obviously don't bring the service module home.
04:44As we mentioned, that gets separated, you know, about 40 minutes before we splash down.
04:49But we did get some nice imagery.
04:50And the next one I thought was interesting.
04:51It's a picture of the solar arrays, but it's actually the backside of the solar array, which we don't normally
04:56see.
04:56So anyway, poured over all this imagery, and everything looks really good for the return.
05:02Operations-wise, there's a few other things going on in the cabin.
05:05You know, one interesting test that we're doing today is when you pressurize the cabin, the panels and things that
05:11are connecting there, you know, kind of shift around a little bit.
05:14And so we're having a demonstration of can you actually remove some fasteners in those panels and put them back
05:19in?
05:19Do the structures still line up enough that you can do that?
05:22This is to help us prove out if we needed to do any kind of maintenance or contingency access to,
05:28like, our ECLA system.
05:29So we'll be looking at that today to see if that demonstration works out well.
05:34We're also doing some demonstration what's called 20 by 20 degree dead banding.
05:39This is pointing the spacecraft a little bit different throughout the day to test thermal responsiveness of the systems externally
05:46to see if we can expand our operating envelope for future missions.
05:51So, I guess some other things, we've collected a lot of data on this mission, we'll be getting a lot
05:55of that data back when it comes back, but did want to mention a couple things.
05:59We've consumed 2,964 pounds of fuel in the service module.
06:03We have 4,285 to go.
06:05So, clearly, we had put a lot of margin into this mission to make sure we could fly it properly.
06:129,855 commands have been uplinked.
06:14So, we've been busy for the flight control team and the MER team doing all of that.
06:19And then we mentioned the optical comm and how effective that has been in getting data down.
06:24122 gigabytes of data downloaded.
06:26That was a record.
06:27That was in a single day.
06:28That was today.
06:29And a total of over 312 gigabytes of data coming down on that optical comm system.
06:33So, that's been really helpful for us getting down to some of this beautiful imagery.
06:37Cabin is currently at a 76 Fahrenheit degree, so the crew is quite comfortable.
06:42Everything looks really well.
06:44And I think that's probably it for me.
06:48Spacecrafts continue to operate nominally, and we are hard at work monitoring it until it gets home.
06:53So, with that, I will hand it over to Lily.
06:55Okay, great.
06:57Thank you for joining us today.
06:58I'm currently at sea aboard the USS John P. Murtha with a joint NASA and military team who are ready
07:05to safely recover the crew once they splash down off the coast of California.
07:09The ship departed from Naval Base San Diego on time, and we are currently maneuvering the ship to the landing
07:15zone.
07:15Over the past couple of days, we have been completing final preparations on the ship, including training with the joint
07:22NASA and military team to refresh the skills and procedures that we've been practicing during underway recovery tests.
07:29I want to quickly walk you, however, through the process of how we will safely recover the Artemis II crew
07:35and the Orion spacecraft once they return from their trip around the moon.
07:39The ship and the small boats will be positioned at a safe distance at Splashdown until the team has determined
07:46that their path of travel will be clear of any of the jettison hardware that Rick talked about.
07:53At Splashdown, the crew in Houston will follow their post-landing procedures, while our divers maintain a distance of about
08:02120 yards to the capsule once we're cleared to go to the capsule.
08:05After handover from the flight director to the landing recovery director, the divers will approach Orion, and they will conduct
08:13assessments of the air and water surrounding the capsule, just to make sure that it's safe to approach and help
08:19the crew exit Orion.
08:21After ensuring the area is safe, they're going to go ahead and open the Orion hatch and help the astronauts
08:26from their seats to a large inflatable raft that we call the front porch.
08:31Once all four astronauts are on the front porch, we will tow the capsule away from the front porch, and
08:37the team will wait, pick up from Navy helicopters, which are deployed from the recovery vessel.
08:42Two helicopters are going to rotate, picking up all four crew members before they return to the recovery ship within
08:49a few minutes of each other.
08:51Once the crew has exited the helicopters, it will proceed to the ship's medical bay to undergo routine post-flight
08:57medical checkups.
08:59We expect to recover the crew and deliver them to the medical bay within two hours of Splashdown.
09:04With the crew safely out of the capsule and in tandem to the recovery, teams will work on towing Orion
09:12into the well deck of the ship,
09:13using procedures that were very similar to those that were used on Artemis 1.
09:17Once we have Orion safely inside and all the small boats are back on the ship, we will start making
09:24our return to Naval Base San Diego.
09:26Depending on our distance, by then, the Artemis 2 crew will fly off the ship back to shore, we anticipate,
09:34within 24 hours post-splashdown.
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