When Artemis II comes blazing back through the Earth’s atmosphere, it will be traveling at around 25,000 miles per hour and reach temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The only thing protecting ...

STILL TITLED: ARTEMIS II: Mission to the Moon, Graphic Date: 04/03/2026 (Credit: Reid Wiseman/NASA, freepik, Artemis II, MGN) Within seconds, temperatures across its 16.5-foot-wide heat shield will ...

When Artemis 2 came blazing back to Earth on April 10, all eyes were on the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. This critical hardware, designed to protect the capsule and its crew from the extreme ...

Artemis II aced its trial-by-fire reentry, despite some concerns that the Orion spacecraft's heat shield would not hold up, a ghostly photo of the spacecraft's underside taken soon after splashdown ...

This could be dangerous to the astronauts on board Artemis 2. Therefore, Artemis 2's Orion will instead enter Earth's atmosphere at a steeper angle than originally planned, in order to reduce the time ...

Excess charring on Artemis I's heat shield had NASA racing to understand what went wrong—and to ensure the technology was still safe for the current crew's high-speed reentry. The uncrewed Artemis I ...