Cosmic Log

The crew of NASA’s round-the-moon test mission crossed the halfway point between the moon and Earth today on their homeward journey — and they’re picking up speed as they zero in on a spot off the coast of California for a live-streamed splashdown on April 10.

At the end of what so far has been a successful Artemis 2 mission, the astronauts are counting on the Orion space capsule’s propulsion system, heat shield and parachutes to work perfectly.

“We’re going to come into the atmosphere at almost 40 times the speed of sound, and then we will slow down to a 20-mile-an-hour touchdown into the Pacific,” NASA pilot Victor Glover told members of Congress today during a space-to-ground Q&A. “The heat shield and the parachutes are going to get us nice and slow. … We can’t wait to see the dive team and the Navy that are going to pick us up.”

Glover and his crewmates — mission commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been testing Orion’s systems during a mission aimed at preparing the way for a lunar landing that could take place as early as 2028. Their 10-day trip is the first time humans have gone around the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Artemis 2 lead flight director Jeff Radigan was asked during a news briefing how Orion’s entry and descent would compare with the “Seven Minutes of Terror” experienced by NASA’s Curiosity rover during its 2012 Mars landing.

“It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right,” said Radigan, referring to the time period between the start of atmospheric entry and splashdown. Then he amended his remarks. “It’s not 13 minutes,” he said. “It’s an hour and a half of things that have to go right.”

Four astronauts today became the first humans to make a trip around the moon since the Apollo era — and added new pages to history books for the Artemis era.

The Artemis 2 crew reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the distance record for human travel that was set during the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 by more than 4,000 miles.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch marked the occasion in a radio transmission from NASA’s Orion space capsule, named Integrity. “We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,” she said.

Koch made history as the first woman to travel beyond Earth orbit. One of her crewmates, NASA pilot Victor Glover, is the first Black astronaut to take a moon trip, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is the first non-U.S. astronaut to do so.

The main purpose of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission is to serve as an initial crewed test flight for the Orion spacecraft, which traced a similar round-the-moon course during the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022. A successful Artemis 2 mission will prepare the way for a lunar lander test flight in Earth orbit as early as next year, potentially followed in 2028 by the first crewed moon landing since Apollo.

Seattle-area tech workers have played a role in getting Orion off the ground — and bringing it back home. L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne facility in Redmond worked on the spacecraft’s main engine and some of its thrusters, while Karman Space Systems’ Mukilteo facility provided mechanisms for Orion’s parachute deployment system and emergency hatch release system.

Artemis 2’s flight plan took advantage of orbital mechanics and a precisely timed firing of Orion’s main engine to send the astronauts on a free-return trip around the moon and back. The moon’s gravitational pull caused Orion to make a crucial U-turn around the far side, at a minimum distance of 4,067 miles from the lunar surface, and then slingshot back toward Earth.