As NASA prepares for the Artemis II crew splashdown expected on Friday (April 10), the astronauts onboard will call each of their families and have medical checks on Tuesday (April 7).

The activities, outlined by NASA officials during a briefing, are the latest in a busy mission that has already yielded photos and data from the spacecratf's Lunar flyby the day prior.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the spacecraft has left the lunar sphere of influence and is currently about 229,000 miles from Earth.

According to Isaacman, favorable weather conditions are anticipated for the recovery operation.

Flight Director Rick Henfling provided details on the upcoming re-entry sequence, with the crew module and service module expected to separate at 7:33 p.m. Eastern Time Friday, followed by entry interface at 7:53 p.m and splashdown just after 8:00 p.m.

Science Officer Kelsey Young told reporters all mission data "relevant to lunar science" will be made public

within six months post splashdown.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

HOUSTON, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (APRIL 7, 2026) (NASA - For editorial use only)

1. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) NASA ADMINISTRATOR, JARED ISAACMAN, SAYING:

"Now, Integrity left the lunar sphere of influence earlier this morning, so there are now approximately 229,000 miles from Earth, and it will splashdown Friday evening at approximately 8:07 p.m. Eastern time. And the recovery weather is so far looking favorable."

3. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FLIGHT DIRECTOR FOR THE ARTEMIS II MISSION, RICK HENFLING, SAYING:

"The crew module and service module separation is going to occur about 20 minutes before entry interface. So that separation will be at 7:33 p.m. Eastern time. We expect entry interface about 7:53 p.m. Eastern time with a splashdown around 8:06 p.m. Eastern time on Friday (April 10)."

5. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FLIGHT DIRECTOR FOR THE ARTEMIS II MISSION, RICK HENFLING, SAYING:

"As for today's operations, we had a couple of public affairs events. The crew is going to have each of them will have a conference with their family members. We'll have some routine medical checks. And then in the evening, we're going to perform the first return trajectory, return trajectory, correction, maneuver. It will be one decimal three feet per second. It will last about 15 seconds. And we're going to use the service module reaction control system thrusters to do that burn. We expect that burn to occur about 9 p.m Eastern time."

7. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ARTEMIS II SCIENCE OFFICER, KELSEY YOUNG, SAYING (SOUNDBITE PLAYS OVER STILL PHOTO OF CRATERS IDENTIFIED BY ARTEMIS II CREW AND THEIR PROPOSED NAMES):

"Upon return, the crew does plan to submit these to the International Astronomical Union as consideration for official names. There was, as Rick said, not a dry eye in the house, really poignant moment and that we were really glad to to observe them describing."

9. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ARTEMIS II SCIENCE OFFICER, KELSEY YOUNG, SAYING:

"You heard a lot of discussion, especially from our pilot, Victor Glover, about the Terminator, which really, you know, to our mind highlighted the benefits and also the challenges for future surface operations, the lighting conditions along the Terminator that the crew experienced yesterday do mimic in many ways the lighting conditions of the south polar region, the low sun angles, the dramatic lighting causing, you know, the extreme shadowing and illumination, also accentuating topography. This is really important for our our agency's future moon base plans and understanding how crew member observations can contribute to future mission planning."

10. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

11. (SOUNDBITE) (English) NASA ADMINISTRATOR, JARED ISAACMAN, SAYING:

"A lot of people's rightful attention right now is on the crew of Artemis II especially here at JSC (Johnson Space Center) in mission control, especially the recovery forces that are now making their way out to to bring this crew back to our family. And for everybody else, we've got the other things to get done, including thinking about Artemis three. It's why I was very happy that the crawler is making its way out to 39 B right now that we've got a timeline to get it back in the VAB, ideally in a week, that would cut down on the turnaround, I think by three months compared to Artemis II. So we can do we can undertake again, world changing missions like like Artemis II right now and get ready for the next one's at the same time."

12. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

13. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FLIGHT DIRECTOR FOR THE ARTEMIS II MISSION, RICK HENFLING, SAYING:

"Toilet remains operational. The challenge that we're working through is evacuating the waste water tank. The vent is a lot less than we were expecting, and so we're having to fall back to some other alternate means other than the toilet. But what you overheard on the spacecraft or on the Orion Earth Channel this morning was us deferring some maintenance on the toilet. Typically, when you have four crew members using it throughout the day, nominally you have to do a maintenance activity once a day and with a lower use rate, since we're not able to to vent the the wastewater products, we don't need to do the maintenance as often. And so that's what that exchange was about."

14. BRIEFING IN PROGRESS

15. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ARTEMIS II SCIENCE OFFICER, KELSEY YOUNG, SAYING:

"We will be getting all mission data relevant to lunar science archived and made publicly available within six months post splashdown. So these are all of the images of the moon, these audio files, and even the annotations. But in the meantime, over those next six months, we're also going to be preparing two reports that we also owe to be publicly released within six months post mission. One is a science operations report that describes how our team was structured to integrate with flight operations to accomplish our objectives. But relevant to your question, the second one is a post mission preliminary Lunar science report. And so we are going to be going objective by objective with those ten lunar science objectives you referenced, looking across this entire, you know, really rich, robust but very large data set and really trying to understand what data we got relevant to each objective, but set up the community for success, so that they can access those data and help us answer these fundamental driving science questions."

IN SPACE (APRIL 6, 2026) (NASA - For editorial use only) (MUTE)

16. STILL PHOTO OF ORION SPACECRAFT IN THE FOREGROUND, LIT UP BY THE SUN, AS A WAXING GIBBOUS MOON IS VISIBLE BEHIND IT

17. STILL PHOTO OF ORION SPACECRAFT IN THE FOREGROUND, LIT UP BY THE SUN AS THE MOON AND EARTH ARE VISIBLE BEHIND IT

IN SPACE (APRIL 7, 2026) (NASA - For editorial use only) (MUTE)

18. STILL PHOTO OF THE SUN EMERGING FROM BEHIND THE MOON AS SEEN FROM ORION SPACECRAFT

19. STILL PHOTO OF THE MOON BACKLIT BY THE SUN AS SEEN FROM ORION SPACECRAFT

IN SPACE (APRIL 6, 2026) (NASA - For editorial use only) (MUTE)

20. STILL PHOTO ORION SPACECRAFT IN THE FOREGROUND, LIT UP BY THE SUN, AS A FIRST-QUARTER MOON IS VISIBLE BEHIND IT