The Artemis II astronauts have faced down numerous dangers on their historic moon mission — including white-knuckling through liftoff on April 1 as their rocket burned through millions of gallons of fuel and braving perilous fields of radiation en route to the moon.But perhaps the most daunting milestone lies ahead: reentry.During this phase of flight, the astronauts’ spacecraft comes roaring toward Earth and dips back into the thick inner band of our planet’s atmosphere while still traveling more than 30 times the speed of sound. The process causes a violent compression of air molecules that can heat the capsule’s exterior to more than 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).AdvertisementAdvertisement“I’ll be honest and say, I’ve actually been thinking about entry since April 3, 2023, when we got assigned to this mission,” Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover said of reentry during an event with media Wednesday. “One of the first press conferences, we were asked, what are we looking forward to? And I said, splashdown. And it’s kind of humorous, but it’s literal as well — that we have to get back. There’s so much data that you’ve seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There’s so many more pictures, so many more stories.”Reentry is considered one of the most — if not the most — precarious steps of any flight to space. And Artemis II will be going through it with a known issue mission controllers are tracking.The problem came to light after the uncrewed Artemis I test flight around the moon in 2022, after which mission teams found that the capsule’s heat shield had returned with concernin …
