Primetime TV night’s lineup looks a bit different tonight. Major networks are all shifting their schedules to accommodate live coverage of the returning Artemis II mission.
The NASA Artemis II mission is slated to splash down off of the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 p.m. ET (5:07 p.m. PT) Friday, April 10, smack in the middle of primetime, which is why there will be time off for coverage airing live specials on both CBS and ABC.
CBS will air a one-hour live special, Artemis II Return To Earth, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. ET. That creates a 30 minute time off for Sheriff Country, Fire Country, and Blue Bloods. ABC will start live coverage on ABC News Live on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu at 7 p.m. ET, but 7:30 p.m. ET coverage begins on ABC and a new episode of Celebrity Jeopardy! has been moved.
Cord-cutters are more than welcome too. NASA will stream live from 6:30 p.m., and the feed will also be on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Netflix, HBO Max, Discovery+, Peacock and Roku. Netflix confirmed it is part of its continued live programming integration with NASA+, and no additional subscription is needed.
The on-board mission has been historic in itself. The crew lifted off from Kennedy Space Center there April 1 and became the first astronauts in more than 50 years to make a trip around the moon, but also the furthest any humans have ever traveled into deep space. The crew broke Aurora 13s long loaf record of 248,655 miles for human furthest trip from Earth, hitting 252,756 miles off Apollos iconic Greenwich.
There’s also going to be a lot of drama when it comes to reentry itself. Hitting the atmosphere at a blistering 25,000 mph, the capsule eventually slows to a breezy 17 mph for a soft splashdown in the ocean. While Orion slows down through around 400,000 feet, the craft will begin a planned six-minute ban on communications at 7:53 p.m. as plasma will build up around the capsule during reentry’s most intense heating.
The four-man crew is , Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and CSA Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen , is expected to splash down off the coast of San Diego. The crew will be picked up by helicopters by recovery teams and flown back aboard USS John P. Murtha, where they’ll go through post-mission medical checks and then returned to shore.
A post-landing news conference is planned for 10:30 p.m. ET at Johnson Space Center.
