For those who follow NASA’s human spaceflight program, when the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield cracked and chipped away during atmospheric reentry on the unpiloted Artemis I test flight in late 2022, ...

The heat shield on Orion is made of 186 blocks of a special material called AVCOAT, which is designed to both provide insulation against the heat, and to burn off in a controlled, predictable way, ...

Within hours of NASA announcing its decision to fly the Artemis II mission aboard an Orion spacecraft with an unmodified heat shield, critics assailed the space agency, saying it had made the wrong ...

Technicians inspect the heat shield on the Orion capsule after Artemis 1. The heat shield lost most charred material than expected, but NASA managers said it was not a safety issue. Credit: NASA/Skip ...

Following the first human journey around the moon in more than half a century, all eyes will be on the heat shield that will protect the crew as they return to Earth — a heat shield, which was damaged ...