More of the charred material than expected came off the heat shield during the Artemis I reentry, and the way it came off was somewhat uneven, NASA officials said. Orion's heat shield is made of a ...

However, once NASA engineers got a closer look at the Orion spacecraft, their optimism faded. They saw cracks in the craft's heat shield and divots in the ablative thermal protection layer ...

NASA finally knows what caused the erosion of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield following its historic trip to the Moon in 2022, but the space agency is not telling, at least not yet.

Damage to the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft flown on Artemis 1, as depicted in a NASA Office of Inspector General report. Credit: NASA OIG HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — NASA has determined why the ...

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the delays are needed to revise the Orion crew capsule's re-entry trajectory to reduce stress and prevent the sort of unexpected heat shield damage seen after ...

The Orion crew module for NASA’s Artemis II mission. NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA is intending to use its new Orion capsule to send astronauts to the moon under its Artemis program, but a new report ...

NASA said the LOFTID test of an inflatable heat shield, seen here after recovery form the Pacific, was a success. Credit: NASA/Greg Swanson WASHINGTON — A NASA demonstration of an inflatable ...

Entering an atmosphere from space, even a thin one like you'd find on Mars, requires a heat shield. NASA is investigating a more dynamic and scalable version of this ...

NASA has announced that it is delaying its ambitious Artemis II and Artemis III missions, which will see astronauts travel around and then land on the moon for the first time in over 50 years.

An inflatable spacecraft heat shield the technology could help NASA land astronauts and massive cargo loads on the Red Planet in the late 2030s. Credit: NASA/Greg Swanson To gently land a rocket ...

NASA successfully launched a flying saucer-like inflatable heat shield — and it could one day help humans land on Mars. The Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, or LOFTID ...

The launch of NASA's first mission to the moon that will carry a Canadian and three American astronauts has been delayed once again, after a lengthy investigation into the heat shield used on the ...