Artemis II’s grand moon finale is almost here with a Pacific splashdown to cap NASA’s lunar comeback

Their dramatic grand finale fast approaching, Artemis II’s astronauts aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the moon in more than a half-century.

The tension in Mission Control mounted as the miles melted away between the four returning astronauts and Earth.

All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry.

On the spacecraft’s only other test flight — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the moon.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 32 — or 32 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.

They didn’t plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion