{"id":260819,"date":"2026-04-10T08:35:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/260819\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:35:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:35:25","slug":"artemis-ii-returns-off-san-diego-on-friday-afternoon-heres-what-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/260819\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II returns off San Diego on Friday afternoon: Here’s what to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Earthrise<\/a>Earthrise over the dark side of the Moon as seen from Artemis II. (Photo courtesy of NASA)<\/p>\n

The Artemis II<\/a> astronauts are scheduled to complete their lunar flyby and return to Earth at 5:07 p.m. Friday afternoon, splashing down near a Navy amphibious ship around 100 miles off San Diego.<\/p>\n

The final portion of the mission will last a harrowing 14 minutes before the Orion capsule with its four astronauts lands in the Pacific Ocean under three giant parachutes.<\/p>\n

You can watch the landing live on the free NASA+ streaming service<\/a> as well as Amazon Prime,\u00a0Apple TV,\u00a0Netflix,\u00a0HBO\u00a0Max,\u00a0Discovery+,\u00a0Peacock\u00a0and\u00a0Roku\u00a0with coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. Many broadcast and cable networks will also have live coverage.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to join other space enthusiasts, the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park has scheduled a watch party<\/a> from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Pavilion of Flight.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a chance the re-entry will be visible from the coast<\/a>. \u201cWatch west over the ocean around the expected time, and if conditions cooperate, you may catch a brief, bright streak as Orion comes in,\u201d said Aaron J. Rosengren, an assistant professor mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC San Diego.<\/p>\n

\"Artemis<\/a>NASA map shows the re-entry path of Artemis II on Friday.<\/p>\n

Preparations for Artemis II\u2019s return begin about five hours before splashdown, according to the NASA timetable, when the spacecraft\u2019s rockets make a final course correction. Then at 4:53 p.m., and traveling 24,000 miles per hour, the capsule will first encounter the atmosphere nearly 76 miles up.<\/p>\n

Friction on the heat shield will quickly raise the outside temperature to around 3,000 degrees and surround the craft with superheated plasma, temporarily cutting off radio communications. After the spacecraft slows, a series of parachutes will unfurl, with Orion finally dropping into the ocean at just 17 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

Once in the water, five orange airbags will inflate around the top of the spacecraft and flip the capsule into an upright position.<\/p>\n

MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters from the nearby amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha<\/a> will be monitoring the landing. Crews from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23<\/a> at North Island and divers from Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 1<\/a> in San Diego will help the astronauts exit the capsule and then fly them to the ship. <\/p>\n

\"Orion<\/a>Navy personnel aboard the USS John P. Murtha practice recovering a mockup of the Orion capsule in January. (Photo courtesy of the Navy)<\/p>\n

The divers will then tow the Orion capsule into the landing ship\u2019s cavernous well deck.<\/p>\n

Aboard the Murtha, the astronauts \u2014 NASA\u2019s\u00a0Reid Wiseman<\/a>,\u00a0Victor Glover<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Christina Koch<\/a>, and the Canadian Space Agency\u2019s \u00a0Jeremy Hansen<\/a> \u2014 will be checked by doctors in the medical bay. <\/p>\n

After being brought to North Island, the crew will board a plane for a flight to Houston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earthrise over the dark side of the Moon as seen from Artemis II. (Photo courtesy of NASA) The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[105999,11482,3098,109753,74,67305,76,75,113123,114782],"class_list":{"0":"post-260819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-artemis-ii","9":"tag-moon","10":"tag-nasa","11":"tag-orion","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-air-space-museum","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news","16":"tag-splashdown","17":"tag-uss-john-p-murtha"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}