NASA and the US Armed Forces have contingency plans for the return on Friday of the Artemis II astronauts off California, where the main concern is the weather and the spacecraft landing outside the expected range, space agency officials indicated on Wednesday (04/08/2026).

The Air Force has C-17 military aircraft ready, in addition to two Navy helicopters that will pick up the astronauts after their splashdown, seven aircraft that will monitor the return and the Pearl Harbor base, explained Lili Villarreal, director of Artemis Landing and Recovery.

“We are still working with the military to guarantee that, if there is an unnominal event (different from what was expected), we have rescue forces ready to go to the non-nominal landing site,” Villarreal said at a press conference.

Experts take precautions

On the eve of the return of the four crew members, who on Monday became the first to orbit the Moon in more than 50 years, specialists are “looking at things that could affect the guidance, navigation, control and propulsion systems,” said Rick Henfling, Flight Director for the Return of Artemis.

NASA set an estimated range of 2,000 nautical miles (3,704 kilometers) in the Pacific for the landing of the Orion capsule, which plans to arrive near San Diego (California), so “contingency plans” focus on what would happen if the ship falls outside that parameter, he explained.

Even so, he emphasized that “there are favorable conditions for a good landing,” scheduled for 8:07 p.m. (EDT) on Friday (00:07 GMT on Saturday), and that the mission commander, Reid Wiseman, and the pilot, Victor Glover, are trained to handle a diversion.

Orion thermal panels reviewed

For now, NASA is reviewing the thermal panels that protect the spacecraft from the heat generated during the return to the atmosphere to detect “if there is anything of concern that would change the reentry profile,” added Debbie Korth, deputy manager of the Orion program.

The first step for the return is the decoupling of the crew module from the rest of the Orion spacecraft, which occurs 42 minutes before splashdown, while the return to the atmosphere occurs 13 minutes before the astronauts’ arrival at sea, Henfling described.

In this period, the ship will reach a maximum speed of 10,657 meters per second, he added.

When the astronauts reach the ocean, doctors will enter the ship to check them and then take them to the Navy helicopters in order: first to Christina Koch, then to Glover, then to the Canadian Jeremy Hansen and, finally, to Commander Wiseman, as detailed by Villarreal.

gs (efe, dpa)