{"id":598808,"date":"2026-04-10T22:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T22:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598808\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T22:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T22:47:10","slug":"nasa-astronauts-prepare-for-splashdown-return-to-earth-from-moon-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598808\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronauts prepare for splashdown return to earth from moon mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we\u2019ve covered, all eyes are on the Orion spacecraft\u2019s <a class=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/world\/north-america\/astronaut-s-terrifying-warning-as-artemis-approaches-its-most-dangerous-moment-20260408-p5zmd1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heat shield<\/a>, which chaotically broke down and cracked last time it was tested in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The damage was caused by gas getting trapped in the shield when it re-entered the atmosphere, which then violently expanded and blew more than 100 chunks off the shield.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey did a tremendous amount of research, a lot of groundbreaking research in some facilities that we had not used before, and they discovered the root cause,\u201d Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman said before launch.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Artemis II crew, from left, Canadian astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and pilot Victor Glover on a video conference from the moon\u2019s orbit.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d5c4592f9421b7b74c0c8a00df14ff7c41ba382a.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>The Artemis II crew, from left, Canadian astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and pilot Victor Glover on a video conference from the moon\u2019s orbit.NASA video via AP<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey did wind tunnel testing and laser testing and hyper-velocity testing, and they determined that if we come in with this lofted profile &#8230; that this heat shield will be safe for us to go fly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I think all that points in the direction of goodness \u2026 and I think if you, as a human being who was about to board this rocket, had sat in the meetings that we sat in and listened to the experts and gone through the data with them, you would have the same comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As we\u2019ve covered, all eyes are on the Orion spacecraft\u2019s heat shield, which chaotically broke down and cracked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-598808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}