NASA investigates whether Artemis II spacecraft protected astronauts well enough

Now that the Artemis II astronauts are safely home from their moon mission, NASA is investigating how well its spacecraft's heat shield protected the crew during their return.

Now that the four astronauts who flew around the moon are safely home, NASA is investigating how its spacecraft fared during the final minutes of the Artemis II mission.

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The Orion capsule’s heat shield — the protective layer at the bottom engineered to prevent it from burning up during the plunge through Earth’s atmosphere — had a known design flaw. During the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022, parts had cracked and broken off during atmospheric re-entry.

Because of that, the Artemis II crew descended faster and at a steeper angle than the path originally planned for the Orion spacecraft, in order to minimize the time it was exposed to the most extreme temperatures.