The dramatic operation of Artemis 2’s homecoming will happen tonight

At 3:07 Israel time, a landing is expected in the waters of the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. The process of returning home is not a simple fall, but a precise engineering dance timed to fractions of a second:

Once the capsule hits the ocean water (Splashdown), the medical mission will begin. For the crew, the landing is a physiological shock. After 10 days of weightlessness, the body will feel unbearably heavy. The astronauts are expected to suffer from intense dizziness (vertigo) and nausea, since their balance system is not calibrated to Earth’s gravity.

US Navy crews, aboard the ship USS San Diego, will approach the capsule. Divers will secure the spacecraft, and the astronauts will be rescued aboard the ship. Because of their muscle weakness, they will likely need physical assistance to stand.

In the first hours, they will undergo a comprehensive series of tests: blood pressure monitoring to make sure they do not pass out while standing, blood tests to measure the levels of stress hormones, and measurements of bone and muscle density. In the coming days they will be under close medical supervision. This is a “recovery quarantine” designed to allow the body’s systems to return to normal function before meeting the public.

The look to the future

The Artemis 2 mission wasn’t just a pleasure flight around the moon; It was a critical technological feasibility demonstration. The mission achieved breaking the human distance record when the team reached a distance of about 400,000 km from home, the greatest distance humans have ever been. For the first time, the air and water circulation system inside the “Orion” was tested with a load of four astronauts in deep space conditions. In the process, it was proven that it is possible to transmit data with a huge bandwidth from the moon, which will change the way we consume content from space.