Stefan Bohacek"The Orion capsule carrying the Artemis II astronauts will be travelling at more than 11 km/s (40,000 km/h) when it reaches Earth’s atmosphere. This is 40 times faster than a passenger jet travels."
Wishing the Artemis II crew a safe return home!
"Zero-g indicators are traditionally flown on space missions as both a mascot and a simple way for astronauts to confirm they have reached microgravity."
"As Artemis II nears its return to Earth, NASA teams on the ground are completing final preparations for Orion’s re-entry and splashdown around 8:07 p.m. (5:07 p.m. PDT) Friday, April 10, off the coast of San Diego."
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/09/artemis-ii-flight-day-9-crew-prepares-to-come-home/
Two hours and 16 minutes until splashdown!
The Artemis II crew are 20,660 miles, or 33,250 km, from home now. Almost there!
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/10/science/live-news/artemis-2-splashdown-astronauts-return
NASA’s Artemis II Crew Comes Home (Official Broadcast)
"“What a journey. We are stable. Four green crew members,” [Artemis II Commander Reid] Wiseman said, indicating all four astronauts are in good shape."
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/10/science/live-news/artemis-2-splashdown-astronauts-return
"Tonight NASA will celebrate this mission, likely with some pretty wild splashdown parties. Tomorrow, the hard work begins."
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/the-artemis-ii-mission-has-ended-where-does-nasa-go-from-here/
While the Artemis II mission is, in part, a celebration of diversity, with the first woman and first non-white person to travel around the Moon, it's also important to remember and honor those who got excluded.
"That was the greatest moment in my life… Nothing I’ve ever seen before — and probably ever will see again — will compare to that moment."
From 2023: https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-engineer-quit-transgender
In solidarity ✊
David Ruffner@stefan what a relief! Cheers to the astronauts and all the people supporting them from the ground.
Nicolas Dufour
Marisa
a.k.a. low-profile@stefan This is going to be epic. Think of the technological advances in camera coverage that we will now have witness to. GO!
Shadow, First of His Name 
@stefan Hoping they arrive there conscious and safety from the insane of G-force. 😵💫 😳
R.L. Dane 
🍵 
Reentry from the moon is no joke.
Compare that 11 km/s reentry speed to something more like 8 km/s coming from low earth orbit.
They hit the atmosphere pretty hard. One [video] I saw of someone using Kerbal Space Program to simulate a reentry from the moon (using a mod to substitute in the real solar system instead of KSP's miniature 1/10th scale planets and solar system) had them using multiple stacked heat sinks to survive reentry, because the stock heat sinks (designed with the game's 1/10th scale solar system in mind) just weren't enough.
Thankfully, NASA doesn't need to stack heat sinks. They've got the right numbers. 😄
@rl_dane Yeah, pretty incredible!