NASA’s Artemis II mission faced one of its greatest challenges on its return to Earth, after completing a flight around the Moon: the extreme conditions of passing through the Earth’s atmosphere and landing off the coast of California, in the United States.
Faber Burgos, renowned Colombian scientific communicator invited by NASA to the launch of Artemis II, explained in an interview with Week that this re-entry represents the most dangerous section of the mission.
According to Burgos, the Orion capsule and its service module, After leaving the gravitational influence of the Moon and approaching the upper layers of the atmosphere, it involves physical-chemical processes that can be challenging.
The service module, with the four astronauts, using a motor called OMS, adjusted the entry angle of the capsule to ensure safe re-entry.
Once the capsule found the optimal angle, the service module separated, leaving Orion with the astronauts and basic resources to survive and complete reentry. Then, said capsule performed a small atmospheric jump, a technique used to help dissipate some of the energy and reduce speed before facing the more intense friction with the air.
Burgos explained that during this process, the capsule became a real ball of fire: “The capsule alone may have outside temperatures of approximately 2,500 to 3,000 degrees Celsius. That’s hell. But how do you keep people safe inside this capsule? “For an ablative material that degrades as the temperature increases,” said the young scientific communicator.
During his explanation to the media, he assured that, in these cases, the safety of the crew depends on an ablative material (designed to protect structures from extreme heat) in the thermal shield, which degrades in a controlled manner to dissipate extreme heat.
In the final phase, eleven parachutes were opened that “reduce that speed to 30 kilometers per hour so that the capsule calmly lands with the four astronauts in the Pacific Ocean, close to the San Diego sostas tonight. Seven, eight at night, Colombian time,” he said.
The return of Artemis II is a milestone for lunar exploration and maintains international attention on technological development and the challenges facing NASA in its goal of returning humanity to the Moon.
Artemis II: successful splashdown of the Orion capsule in the Pacific after re-entry at 40,000 km/h
Official information from NASA indicated that the Orion capsule of the Artemis II mission successfully landed in the Pacific Ocean, concluding a journey of more than one million kilometers through space.
The astronauts crossed the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 40,000 kilometers per hourwhile the ship’s heat shield withstood temperatures of up to 2,700 degrees Celsius.
The descent ended off the coast of San Diego, California, where rescue teams confirmed that the crew is in excellent health.
Hours before descent, the astronauts performed the third and final trajectory correction maneuver, activating the Orion thrusters for 8 seconds to place the capsule at the appropriate angle for atmospheric entry.
“It is a vital step to ensure that the Orion capsule reaches the entry corridor over the Pacific Ocean before splashdown. It looks like we are going to perform a good third RTC ignition maneuver and we are evaluating the details,” mission control in Houston communicated to the crew.
For its part, the exit protocol for the crew, made up of astronauts Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen and Victor Glover, lasted a couple of hours, at the hands of recovery personnel.
