Artemis II Heat Shield After Splashdown
Image: NASA
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Wires & papers of record
- Description A lunar lander from Voyager Technologies completed nearly three months of environmental testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in late September 2026. The tests demonstrate that the spacecraft is prepared to face the harsh conditions of launch, its journey…
- NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the Moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the Moon’s surface. Additional engineering data analysis of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield confirmed initial data showing the heat shield performed as…
- Shortly after NASA’s Artemis II mission splashed down on April 10, 2026, U.S. Navy divers captured underwater imagery of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. In the months after, the agency measured whether the thermal protection system effectively safeguarded the crew and Orion systems as the…
Coverage
- We’ve studied the moon with robotic spacecraft for decades. What do human observers add? Artemis II’s first science results offer some answers.
More coverage
- NASA is taking an unusual approach to testing heat shields that can keep astronauts safe as they return from missions to the moon and Mars: taking out the trash.
- A new study of young tectonic landforms on the moon offers the most detailed estimate yet of how much the moon has contracted as its interior gradually cooled over time.
- NASA's Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the moon's surface.