spacetoday.net: NASA identifies root cause of Orion heat shield issue

Posted: Sun, Nov 3, 2024, 9:54 AM ET (1454 GMT)
NASA says it now understands why the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft eroded more than expected on the Artemis 1 mission, but won't disclose that reason for now. At meetings Monday, NASA officials said they had identified the root cause of the unexpected "char loss" on the heat shield during Orion's reentry at the end of the Artemis 1 mission in December 2022. However, those officials declined to discuss that root cause while additional testing is in progress on ways to mitigate the problem for the upcoming Artemis 2 mission, the first crewed Orion flight. Those tests are scheduled to wrap up by the end of November with more details on the root cause and mitigation steps to be released by the end of the year. Artemis 2 is still officially scheduled for launch no earlier than September 2025.