Two years ago next week, NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to wrap up what, at first glance, seemed to be a highly successful unpiloted test flight that made a return to the Moon feel within reach. The Orion capsule descended ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the next American astronauts and first international astronaut on the South Pole region of the Moon. On Thursday, NASA announced the latest updates to its lunar ...

Off the coast of Baja California in December 2022, sun sparkled over the rippling sea as waves sloshed around the USS Portland dock ship. Navy officials on the deck scrutinized the sky in search of a sign. The glow appeared suddenly. Orion’s reentry ...

The heat shield of Orion, returned by Artemis I, was battered and bruised over 100 times, and NASA intends to put four people on the next one. Artemis II is constructed on the basis of a mere promise with complex engineering behind it: a crewed orbit ...

Inside NASA’s Arc Jet Complex at the Ames Research Centre in California, a heat shield design is being put to the test

Less than a year after announcing major delays for the next two Artemis moon missions, NASA managers said Thursday the projected flight dates are slipping once again, with the first piloted voyage around the moon now expected in the April 2026 timeframe ...

Engineers are partnering this month at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to remove and analyze some 180 small squares of an ablative material called Avcoat — the outer coating of the heat shield that protected the Orion crew module during its 2014 flight ...