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Nearly a week after their historic 10-day voyage to the moon and back, the Artemis II crew opened up about the intense reentry and flawless splashdown experience during an interview with ABC’s “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir. The conversation took place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to Mission Control.
Christina Koch, one of the mission specialists, emphasized just how extreme reentry is compared to launch. “Reentry is at least 10 times wilder of an experience than any rocket launch,” she explained.
“It’s the grand finale of any spaceflight. Coming back to a planet is no joke.
It’s not like landing a plane.”
As the Orion capsule descended through Earth’s atmosphere, friction and compression created a plasma bubble around it, causing a six-minute communication blackout and subjecting the spacecraft to blistering heat reaching up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Koch described the sight vividly: “The fireball we were in was so bright, it was like an arc welder-you could barely look at it.”
Commander Reid Wiseman recalled reassuring the crew with “Everything’s nominal,” even though none of them could fully know if that was true. “I thought, he has no idea if this is nominal, but I’m glad he said that because it made me feel better,” Koch said.
Wiseman praised pilot Victor Glover’s steady focus throughout the reentry. “We were under four Gs for about 13 minutes, and he maintained a flawless cadence of altitudes and speeds the entire time. It was the most impressive operational experience I’ve witnessed.”
Glover described the experience as “literally and figuratively intense,” explaining the critical importance of maintaining that cadence during the communication blackout. Without radio contact, the crew had to rely on timing to know when to deploy parachutes and other systems manually if needed.
The splashdown itself was a deeply moving moment. “I think I just said, ‘Welcome back to Earth,’” Glover recalled. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen expressed profound gratitude for the Orion capsule’s role in keeping the crew safe through such an arduous journey.
The team also shared a touching story from their mission: a proposal to name a lunar crater after Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll. “It’s the pinnacle of my entire life to honor such an amazing woman, the mother of my two daughters,” Wiseman said.
“That moment is etched in my mind forever. It’s a gift to my daughters, who had to watch their dad hurl himself around the moon with three of his best friends.”
As the Artemis II crew returns from a milestone mission marking the first crewed lunar flight in over 50 years, their reflections highlight not only the technical triumphs but also the deep human connections forged on this extraordinary journey.