Taking the heat To understand what exactly happened to Orion, let’s rewind the story. As the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere, it started skimming its higher layers, which acts a bit like ...

After Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean a couple weeks later, however, NASA spotted a problem with the spacecraft's heat shield. It had cracked and chipped in more than 100 places.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the Orion spacecraft heat shield underwent extensive testing after the 2022 Artemis 1 flight around the Moon to understand the risks to astronauts.

The Orion spacecraft splashed down in December 2022, marking the end of the Artemis I mission. On Dec. 11, 2022 – the time of the Artemis I reentry – this shield took severe damage, which ...

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, ...

While the Orion spacecraft and its heat shield performed their primary function—keeping the capsule and its systems safe from the 5,000-degree Fahrenheit temperatures during reentry—the ...

The missions will be pushed to April 2026 and mid-2027 respectively, which is around six months later than previously planned. The delay is due to problems with the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield.

The spacecraft is rigged with 1,200 sensors to gauge everything from heat to vibration to radiation. At 11 feet tall with a 16.5-foot base, Orion is bigger than the old-time Apollo capsules and ...

NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said Orion's shield "wore away differently than expected" upon the skip re-entry, the maneuver used to slow the spacecraft down as it re-enters Earth's ...

(The target is now 2027.) So, NASA needed to make sure that any damage to the capsule– even its heat shield, which is meant to take some damage – wouldn’t risk the lives of a future crew.