Mission Control tension mounts as Artemis astronauts speed closer to splashdown

The Artemis II crew pause for a group photo inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home to Earth (Nasa via AP)

The tension in Houston’s Mission Control is mounting as the Artemis II astronauts aim for a splashdown in the Pacific in the early hours of Saturday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the Moon in more than half a century.

All eyes will be on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during re-entry.

On the only other test flight of the spacecraft — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the Moon.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere travelling Mach 32 — or 32 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since Nasa’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.

They did not plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, is completely self-flying.

Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature”, especially during the six minutes of communication blackout preceding the opening of the parachutes.

The Artemis II crew photographed the Moon (Nasa via AP)

The recovery ship USS John P Murtha awaits the crew’s arrival, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.

The last time Nasa and the Defence Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s re-entry was Apollo 17 in 1972.

Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 34,965 feet per second — or 23,840mph — not a record but still incredibly fast before slowing to a 19mph splashdown.

Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated Nasa’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable base on the Moon.

Artemis II did not land on the Moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record, making Mr Wiseman and his crew the furthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when they reached 252,756 miles.

Then in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Mr Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.

During the record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the lunar far side never seen before by the naked eye and savoured a total solar eclipse courtesy of the cosmos thanks to their launch date. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Mr Glover said.

Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the Moon and Earth.

The Artemis II crew, counter-clockwise from top left, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, pose with eclipse viewers during a lunar flyby (Nasa via AP)

The Artemis II crew channelled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our blue marble setting behind the grey Moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.

“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Mr Radigan said on the eve of splashdown. “It’s the first of many trips and we just need to continue on because there’s so much” more to learn about the Moon.

Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems.

Under the revamped Artemis programme, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practise docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the Moon’s south pole in 2028.

The Artemis II crew’s allegiance was to those next Artemis crews, Mr Wiseman said.

“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.