(WGGB/WSHM) - On Friday night, NASA’S Artemis II crew, the first-time humans have traveled out around the moon in more than 50 years. The 10-day mission has been a renouncing success for NASA and the Artemis Program. Now, the mission is heading into the most critical phase: reentry.

The Artemis crew is returning home, the first human mission to the moon in over 50 years. the mission has already delivered stunning new views of earth and space, and a successful lunar flyby, setting a new record for distance from earth on a human space mission.

As the crew aboard the Orion spacecraft aboard now prepares for their splashdown off the coast of San Diego, they are entering perhaps the most dangerous part of the mission, reentry.

“But it’s actually a very natural part of entry. And they’ll be coming in heat shield first, because that is designed to actually literally burn up a little bit at a time to then, you know, make sure that that heat is going into the burned off layer, not the spacecraft itself,” said retired NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman.

If you plan on following along live Friday night, you can expect to see a fiery return, a brief communications blackout, and then drogue chutes and main parachutes. Then if everything goes to plan, crews securing the capsule and pulling the astronauts out.

The mission tested many of NASA’s safety systems and deep space network, and marks the first step towards returning humans back to the surface of the moon, which NASA hopes to do with Artemis III in 2027

“This is Artemis II, there’s Artemis III, and it’s like a relay race in that this is the start. And the Artemis III folks are like on the starting line, one hand reaching back, waiting for the baton, and then they will be off,” Coleman said.

The Orion Module will be reentering the earth’s atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour, and at around 8:07 p.m. Friday night.

Copyright 2026 Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.