During the investigation, NASA replicated the charring and cracking after engineers devised a test procedure to expose Avcoat heat shield material to the actual conditions of the Artemis I reentry.

After nearly two years spent analyzing samples of the charred material, NASA concluded that the Orion project team had overestimated the heat flow as the craft skimmed the atmosphere upon reentry.

An innovative approach for fully reusable spacecraft suggests making them "sweat" to survive the scorching heat during reentry to Earth's atmosphere, allowing them to land ready for another flight.

Sad day for NASA," Ed Pope, an expert in advanced materials and heat shields, wrote on LinkedIn. There is a lot riding on NASA's decision, as the Artemis II mission involves four astronauts and ...

During the Artemis 1 re-entry, more charred material separated from the heat shield than computer models predicted. While the unexpected "liberation" had no impact on the spacecraft — NASA said ...

NASA also shared that it had identified the issue with the heat shield material, which was that gases were building up in a layer of material called Avcoat and could not escape, causing the ...

But soon thereafter, NASA and contractors began wrestling with the discovery that Orion's ablative heat shield wore away differently than predicted. Some areas of expected charred material ablated ...

The report from NASA’s inspector general was released this week and details issues with the heat shield, which lost some material during the first flight of Orion during the Artemis I mission in ...

The material was originally developed at Ames, and February's re-entry marked the first time a NASA-manufactured C-PICA heat shield ever returned from space. "We performed extensive testing on the ...

NASA reported after Artemis I returned to Earth that the vehicle's heat shield had experienced an unexpected loss of charred material. NASA intended to use this same material for future crewed ...

After nearly two years spent analyzing samples of the charred material, NASA concluded that the Orion project team had overestimated the heat flow as the craft skimmed the atmosphere upon reentry.