Artemis II astronauts are set for the dangerous journey back to Earth

The four Artemis II astronauts are returning home Friday night.

But before the celebrations can begin, the astronauts must go through the final, and perhaps most dangerous, part of their mission.

The Orion capsule will travel nearly 25,000 mph to reenter Earth’s atmosphere with a heat shield to protect them from temperatures nearly as hot as the sun’s surface. And Orion’s angle must be precise, with less than a degree of wiggle room as the capsule is in self-pilot mode.

“Every system we’ve demonstrated over the past nine days … all of it depends on the final minutes of flight,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator, during Thursday’s press conference. “We have high confidence in the system and the heat shield and the parachutes and the recovery systems we put together. … And tomorrow the crew is going to put their lives behind that confidence.”

Pilot Victor Glover, Commander Reid Wiseman and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen blasted off on their 10-day mission to orbit the moon, NASA’s first moon mission since 1972. Artemis II is helping NASA get ready for future exploration to land on the moon again and send humans to Mars.

The Artemis II took off from Kennedy Space Center, drawing huge crowds to watch the historic launch. But when the Orion is scheduled to splash down at 8:07 p.m. Friday, the end of the mission will take place on the country’s opposite coast.

Kshatriya said NASA opted for the California waters because it was calm and near Naval Base San Diego.

The masterminds on Earth helping run the mission elaborated on the emotions leading into Friday, when communications with Orion goes into blackout around 7:53 p.m. EST.

“There’s no question that we’ll all be anxious,” Kshatriya said. “It’s impossible to say you don’t have irrational fears left, but I would tell you I don’t have any rational fears about what’s going to happen. We’ve done the work we need to.”

Jeff Radigan, Artemis II Lead Flight Director, knows he will keep a checklist running through his mind in those final minutes before splashdown, he said.

“It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right is the way I think about it. I have a whole checklist in my head that we’re going through of all the things that have to happen,” Radigan said of issues ranging from the forward bay cover coming off to the heat shield working properly. “It’s not so much 13 minutes. It’s more in my head, about an hour and a half of things that have to go right.”

The families of the four astronauts will be watching at Mission Control in Houston, Kshatriya said.

“There’s no question that we’ll all be anxious and we’ll be with the families. … We’ll all be together,” Kshatriya said. “The courage that the families show during these missions is as great as or equal to what the crew shows when they go to fly.”