After journeying around the Moon, the Orion capsule with four astronauts arrives on the coast of California, in the USA; reentry will test heat shield at 2,700 °C
After a ten-day trip around the Moon full of historical momentsthe four astronauts of the mission Artemis II they should return to the Earth’s atmosphere and land this Friday (10) off the coast of California, in the United States.
“We can start celebrating when the crew is safely aboard the recovery vessel,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Amit Kshatriya at a press conference on Thursday (9). “It will really be at this moment that we can let our emotions take over and talk about the success of the mission.”
The Orion capsule, which transports the Americans Christina Koch, Victor Glover e Reid Wisemanin addition to the Canadian Jeremy Hansentraveled more than 406 thousand kilometers — distance greater than any other crew has ever achieved. Landing is scheduled for 5:07 p.m. San Diego local time (at 9:07 pm Brasília time), in the Pacific Ocean.
The landing will crown a perfectly executed mission to date and will represent a milestone for NASA: the first safe return of astronauts to space since the end of the Apollo program in 1972, after years of delays and uncertainty.
The main challenge will be atmospheric reentry. Orion’s heat shield will need withstand temperatures of up to 2,700 °C generated by friction with the atmosphere. “Passing through the atmosphere like a ball of fire” will be a remarkable experience, confessed pilot Victor Glover at the beginning of the week, admitting that he has felt apprehension since being selected for the crew, in 2023.
Although reentry is always critical, this time the concerns are greater: it is about the Orion’s first manned flight and in 2022, an unmanned test revealed an “unexpected” change in the heat shield. Despite the anomaly, the agency decided keep the same materialonly adjusting the trajectory to a more direct entry angle and reduce the ricochet that had damaged the shield in the previous test.
The decision generated internal debates and continues to worry senior managers. “I’m not going to stop thinking about it until they’re in the water,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recently acknowledged. His deputy, Amit Kshatriya, admitted on Thursday that “it is impossible to say that there are no irrational apprehensions left”, although he claims to have no rational fears and trust in the tests, simulations and models carried out.
For 13 minutes — six of them without communication with Earth —, the capsule will reach 38 mil km/h before being slowed down by a parachute sequence e land in the ocean. The astronauts’ families will follow the operation in real time at the NASA control center in Houston.
The path to 2028
More than a test flight, Artemis II aims validate all systems for returning Americans to the lunar surface. The American space agency targets the first manned landing in 2028still under Donald Trump, before the Chinese 2030 target. The landing modules, developed by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ companies, are still in progress. advanced phase of construction.
Meanwhile, the tens of billions of dollars mission seeks to reignite Americans’ enthusiasm for space exploration. As Commander Reid Wiseman summarized this week, the crew hoped to “allow, if only for a moment, the world to pause.”
*With information from AFP
