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Perhaps the biggest question going into the Artemis II mission this spring was how the heat shield at the base of the spacecraft would perform during reentry through Earth’s atmosphere. The ablative heat shield, designed to char upon reentry while keeping the crew safe, had experienced unexpected losses of large chunks during a test flight in late 2022. After much deliberation, and not without controversy, NASA decided to fly the Artemis II heat shield as is but modify the spacecraft’s reentry trajectory. Obviously, the heat shield worked. The crew of Artemis II, led by commander Reid Wiseman, safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a triumphant trip around the Moon. Afterward, they and other NASA officials offered general comments, saying the heat shield looked good. But how good? During a meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel this week, its members had an opportunity to review NASA’s findings during a visit to the Ames Research Center in California. The condition of the heat shield, said panel member Paul Hill, was “highly satisfying.” After the Artemis I mission in 2022, there were more than 100 char loss sites observed across the dish-shaped heat shield at the base of Orion, some of which were more than an inch deep. On the Artemis II heat shield, he said, there were approximately nine char loss sites observed. “So it was a big improvement,” said Hill, former director of Mission Operations at NASA. Confidence in future Artemis missions The success of the Artemis II heat shield, which now appears to have been confirmed by an extensive data review, will give NASA confidence in the performance of its deep-space vehicle for future lunar missions.
document fetched 2026-09-02 06:31 · canonical https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/09/it-turns-out-that-orions-much-maligned-heat-shield-performed-really-well