Artemis II is scheduled to land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 pm EDT on Friday, April 10. NASA coverage begins at 6:30 pm EDT. The service model will separate from the Orion capsule at 7:25 pm EDT. The Orion capsule will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at 7:53 pm EDT beginning a 13 minute descent. At this point Artemis II will be 400,000 feet up and traveling at 24,000 mph. Shortly after that, there will be a six minute communication blackout. The parachutes will deploy in sequence after around 10 minutes as the capsule passes 22,000 to 5,000 feet.
For more on the Artemis II flight, see: Return to the Moon with Artemis, Part II, as well as NASA websites: Artemis II and Artemis II News and Updates. You should be able to follow the landing on NASA’s YouTube channel. You can also track where Artemis is using NASA’s AROW.
- Joseph Zakrzewski and Abby Graf. “Artemis II Flight Day 9: Crew Prepares to Come Home.” NASA. April 9, 2026.
- Joseph Zakrzewski, Linda E. Grimm, and Catherine E. Williams. “Artemis II Flight Day 8: Crew Conducts Key Tests on Return to Earth.” NASA. April 8.
- Claire Cameron. “NASA’s Artemis II mission’s return to Earth, hour by hour.” Scientific American. April 9, 2026.
- Ellyn Lapointe. “How to Watch NASA’s Artemis 2 Return to Earth at a Blazing 25,000 MPH.” Gizmodo. April 8, 2026.
You must be logged in to post a comment.