In deep-space travel, sometimes the most important “hardware” is a few inches of material that only matters for minutes. The ...

As the four-person crew of Artemis II prepares to launch on a historic mission around the moon as soon as February, some experts are worried about the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield.

In a few quiet moments of training, the Artemis II crew has already practiced the final, wet moments of their mission climbing out of a capsule bobbing in open water, assisted by recovery teams who ...

Using cutting-edge material licensed from NASA, a protective heat shield manufactured in-house by Varda Space Industries for the first time enabled one of its capsules to blaze through Earth’s ...

WASHINGTON, DC—This week, NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, said he has “full confidence” in the space agency’s plans to use the existing heat shield to protect the Orion spacecraft during its ...

Rather than completely burning up when a spacecraft reenters Earth's atmosphere, its heat shield's outer surface is sacrificed to protect the rest of the vehicle. The carbon fibers decompose, ...