NASA said Artemis II’s Orion capsule splashed down off the coast of San Diego on April 10 after a 694,481-mile trip around the Moon and back, and early checks found the Nasa Artemis Ii Heat Shield held up as expected during the blistering return to Earth.
The spacecraft came home 2.9 miles from the targeted landing site after traveling nearly 35 times the speed of sound through reentry. Engineers began detailed analysis of data on Orion, the SLS rocket and systems at NASA Kennedy Space Center after the splashdown, and initial inspections found the thermal protection system performed as expected with no unusual conditions identified.
That first look matters because the heat shield is the part of Orion that took the worst of the reentry heating, protecting both the crew and the spacecraft as it plunged back through the atmosphere. Initial assessments also showed the entry interface velocity was within one mile-per-hour of predictions, an early sign that the spacecraft was delivered and returned with the kind of precision NASA wanted from the test flight.
Diver imagery taken after splashdown and additional inspections on the recovery ship showed the char loss behavior seen on Artemis I was significantly reduced in both quantity and size. NASA said that finding matched arc jet facility ground testing done after Artemis I, while airborne imagery of Orion’s crew module gathered during reentry will be reviewed in the coming weeks. The ceramic tiles on the upper conical backshell also performed as expected, and reflective thermal tape remained in numerous locations after reentry.
The crew module is expected to return to NASA Kennedy this month for more examination of the heat shield during Orion de-servicing in the Multi-Payload Processing Facility. Over the summer, the shield will be sent to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for sample extraction and internal x-ray scans. The SLS rocket that launched Artemis II also met its mission objectives, with an early assessment saying it placed Orion where it needed to be in space.
Artemis II is being used to clear the way for Artemis III next year, along with future lunar surface missions, a Moon base and eventual flights to Mars. Teams are also assessing hardware and gathering data to support the post-flight investigation of the urine vent line issue that came up during the mission, leaving one more engineering thread to close before NASA can move deeper into the next phase of the program.