Closing out a 25-day voyage around the moon, NASA's Artemis 1 spacecraft closed in on Earth, on track for a 25,000-mph re-entry that will subject the unpiloted capsule to a hellish 5,000-degree inferno before splashdown off Baja California.
Closing out a 25-day voyage around the moon, NASA's Artemis 1 spacecraft closed in on Earth Saturday, on track for a 25,000-mph re-entry Sunday that will subject the unpiloted capsule to a hellish 5,000-degree inferno before splashdown off Baja California.
"There is no arc jet or aerothermal facility here on Earth capable of replicating hypersonic reentry with a heat shield of this size," he said."And it is a brand new heat shield design, and it is a safety-critical piece of equipment. It is designed to protect the spacecraft and ... so the heat shield needs to work."
The team is already analyzing that data"to help not only understand the performance on Artemis 1, but play forward for all subsequent missions," he said. NASA originally planned to bring the ship down west of San Diego, but a predicted cold front bringing higher winds and rougher seas prompted mission managers to move the landing site south by about 350 miles. Splashdown is now expected south of Guadalupe Island some 200 miles west of Baja California.
After another two-and-a-half minute communications blackout during its second drop into the lower atmosphere, the spacecraft will continue decelerating as it closes in on the targeted landing site, slowing to around 650 mph, roughly the speed of sound, about 15 minutes after the entry began. Expected mission duration: 25 days 10 hours 52 minutes, covering 1.4 million miles since blastoff November 16.
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