{"id":14322,"date":"2026-04-10T10:11:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=14322"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:11:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:11:58","slug":"theyve-made-history-but-the-most-dangerous-part-is-still-ahead-%f0%9f%9a%80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=14322","title":{"rendered":"They\u2019ve made history \u2013 but the most dangerous part is still ahead\u2026 \ud83d\ude80"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Artemis
Credit: Manuel Mazzanti\/NurPhoto via Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The crew of Artemis II have officially made history \u2013 but their most dangerous moment is still ahead of them.
\n<\/strong>
\nMore than a week after launching on April 1,\u00a0NASA<\/a>\u00a0astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, alongside Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, have now begun their journey back to Earth following a record-breaking\u00a0mission behind the Moon.<\/a><\/p>\n

The milestone came during a seven-hour lunar flyby, which included a 40-minute communications blackout as the spacecraft passed around the far side of the Moon.<\/p>\n

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But while the achievement marks a major step forward for NASA\u2019s deep space ambitions, attention is now turning to what many consider the riskiest phase of the mission: re-entry.<\/p>\n

Artemis II return to Earth<\/h2>\n

The Orion spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth on Friday, April 10, with a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 p.m. ET (1:07 a.m. BST). Instead of landing on solid ground, the crew will descend by parachute into open water, where recovery teams will be waiting, according to\u00a0Tyla.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The United States Navy has deployed the USS John P. Murtha (LPD-26) to retrieve both the astronauts and the capsule, while a Navy helicopter will track Orion during its high-speed descent.<\/p>\n

According to the BBC, the spacecraft will slam into Earth\u2019s atmosphere at approximately 25,000 mph (40,000 km\/h) \u2013 conditions that cannot be fully replicated in simulations.<\/p>\n

The risks are not theoretical. During the uncrewed Artemis I mission in December 2022, Orion\u2019s heat shield experienced unexpected charring and cracking upon re-entry. The issue prompted an investigation that delayed Artemis II by more than a year.<\/p>\n

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman acknowledged the significance of the moment in a post on X: \u201cBefore they left, they said they hoped this mission would be forgotten, but it will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n

\u201cThis mission isn\u2019t over until they\u2019re under safe parachutes, splashing down into the Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: Manuel Mazzanti\/NurPhoto via Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images The crew of Artemis II have officially made history \u2013 but their most dangerous moment is still ahead… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14324,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14322\/revisions\/14324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}