Artemis II: Day Eight

Preparing for Missions Beyond

The crew spent today preparing the cabin for reentry. Originally, one of the main activities was to have been a full test of radiation shelter procedure; this was mostly skipped for time, with a reduced demonstration being performed instead to ensure that the shelter area could be properly ventilated with all four crew members inside.

Artemis II crew moving cargo around the cabin

During the Apollo missions, keeping the crew safe from solar flares mostly relied on forecasting - thankfully no major even occurred during a mission, but a large one did occur in August 1972 between Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. There was a procedure to move to the part of the Command and Service Module where the spacecraft structure would provide most shielding, but this would not have been a full mitigation. Things work differently for Artemis though.