'Flames soon engulfed us': Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen describes his mission's riskiest moment
In this excerpt from the book, Hansen describes the thrilling intensity of splashdown and the euphoria of knowing that he and his crewmates were going to make it back safely — and make history.
Key points
- It wasn't that he was afraid for himself, Hansen explains in " Earthrise: Inside Artemis II, the Groundbreaking Human Mission into Deep Space " (Hanover Square Press, 2026), which he co-wrote with John Larsen).
- Rather, he knew that his wife Catherine and three children would be among the millions of Earthlings watching the most dangerous moment of his mission from below.
- After nine days in space, the four crewmembers of NASA's Artemis II mission looked out their capsule window on April 10, 2026, and saw the bright-blue Earth below them.
CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen smiles inside the Orion crew capsule during the Artemis II lunar flyby.
Within seconds, we saw plasma forming outside our windows, and the heat at the base of our capsule grew so intense that flames soon engulfed us.
Additional details
- I had talked to them openly about the mission's risks, and this was the highest-risk moment.
- I had half-expected the freefall back to Earth to seem short, but it was a long six minutes before the flames finally ceased and we re-established….
- The thrusters fired almost constantly to stabilize the capsule: loud thuds, as if Thor himself were hammering on our spacecraft, as the G-forces quickly began to build, aggressively scrubbing off the velocity we had added to our rocket nine days earlier.
- Almost instantly, the heat inside our cramped home also began to rise, an increase that engineers refer to as "thermally benign." All I know is that I couldn't feel it, blissfully wrapped in my thermally controlled garments.
- But this was Hansen's first time in space, and his first time dropping through the sky like a fireball at 24,600 mph (39,600 kmh).
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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