Space & Astronomy

Underwater images of Artemis II heat shield reveal how it fared

By T.K. Randall
April 26, 2026 ·  7 comments

Image: Artemis II Heat Shield
Credit: US Navy / (PD) For anyone daring to venture into space, one of the single most important things that you'll need is a heat shield - essentially a thin piece of material that protects a spacecraft from the extreme heat generated during re-entry through Earth's atmosphere.

When the unmanned Artemis I flew around the Moon, the heat shield did work, but NASA later noticed that it had sustained more charring than expected and pieces of it had broken off.

To avoid this on the next mission, changes were made to the Artemis II re-entry trajectory.

Following the Artemis II crew's successful return to Earth, NASA had been keen to examine the heat shield to see how it fared and to see if these changes had been successful.

Preliminary examinations of the heat shield fortunately revealed that everything was looking good."Initial inspections of the system found it performed as expected, with no unusual conditions identified," NASA wrote.

"Diver imagery of the spacecraft's heat shield initially taken after splashdown and further inspections on the recovery ship found the char loss behavior observed on Artemis I was significantly reduced, both in terms of quantity and size."

This is all great news, as it shows that the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft is up to the task.

We are now waiting to hear more about the Artemis III mission, which will test out docking procedures with the upcoming lunar module (either built by SpaceX or Blue Origin).

Once that's been achieved, Artemis IV will see humans finally set foot on the Moon.

Source: Live Science | Comments (7)

Tags: Artemis