NASA has shown a video of the Orion spacecraft entering the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 40 thousand kilometers per hour . This is what astronauts returning from the Moon will see.
In December 2022, NASA’s Orion spacecraft successfully returned to Earth after flying around the Moon. A year later, the mission team showed a video made from the ship itself at the moment of reentry at a speed 32 times faster than the speed of sound.
The Orion spacecraft is to deliver humans to the moon as part of the next Artemis mission. This could happen as early as 2024, and the footage shown by NASA is literally what the astronauts will see when they return home.
As part of the first Artemis mission, which lasted more than 25 days, Orion flew around the Moon twice, approaching its surface at a distance of about 130 km. In total, it traveled 434,500 kilometers, flying further than any other spacecraft designed for humans before plunging into our atmosphere at a speed of approximately 40 thousand km/h.
Orion was also the first spacecraft designed for humans to try to skip re-entry by bouncing off the atmosphere like a stone off the water surface. This approach will help the vehicle land in the right place, regardless of where it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
If the second flight is successful, it is planned to launch a manned Artemis-3 mission with a human landing on the Moon in 2025.
