weather cooperated for the launch on the Florida coast<\/a>, and Mother Nature is expected to do the same for the astronauts’ homecoming.<\/p>\nSpecific criteria are needed for the successful recovery of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean. First, wave heights must be less than 6 feet. Winds cannot be more than 28 mph.<\/p>\n
Forecasters want good visibility and minimum cloud cover, which also means no rain or thunderstorm activity, including lightning, within 35 miles of the splashdown site.<\/p>\n
The splashdown location will be off the coast of San Diego. NASA is looking at an area about 50 to 80 miles offshore for the splashdown location. This gives forecasters a window of time and location to ensure the Orion crew is safe during reentry and that crews on the ground can retrieve the capsule.<\/p>\n
There is an increasing chance for showers and possibly a thunderstorm near San Diego as a Pacific storm system begins to approach the West Coast.<\/p>\n
A cold front will even be just offshore of California on Friday. Thankfully, the conditions expected for the splashdown window remain favorable.<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, the splashdown time of the Orion capsule off the California coast is scheduled for 5:07 p.m. PDT on April 10, and the forecast is expected to cooperate.<\/p>\n
The crew will enter Earth’s atmosphere just before the top of the hour and then land in the Pacific Ocean minutes later during its high-speed reentry.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft will eventually slow down to roughly 17 mph when it lands in the ocean, thanks to the deployment of several parachutes.<\/p>\n
Residents near the coast of San Diego might also hear a sonic boom as the spacecraft enters the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
NASA will confirm the exact landing time and approximate location on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All eyes are on the Artemis II crew as the Orion spacecraft is set to splash down in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[252226,79,193],"class_list":["post-572943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-252226","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}