The Artemis II astronauts are scheduled to return Friday from their trip to the moon. When they do, they will slam into Earth’s atmosphere at over 32 times the speed of sound — and will do so using a ...

Two spacewalking astronauts, working outside the international space station late Thursday, wrapped up tests with a gooey repair material for damaged shuttle heat shielding that NASA hopes it never ...

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, ...

As NASA prepares to send four astronauts around the Moon on Artemis II, a photograph of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield sparked a wave of online concern in early 2026. A visible spot on the capsule ...

The heat shield of the Orion spacecraft intended one day to carry astronauts to the moon under NASA’s Artemis program suffered unexpected damage in more than 100 places as the spacecraft returned to ...

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Marcos Fernandexz Tous is a professor of aerospace ...