With the images of the splashdown of Artemis II, on April 10, Spectators questioned the durability of the Orion capsule heat shielddesigned to protect the capsule and its crew from the extreme temperatures recorded during atmospheric re-entry.
The doubts arose from a close-up image that went viral on social networks, where a whitened area was visible, as if a part of material was missing in the lower area of the ship, precisely where the heat shield is located; and the controversy increased when remembering that Artemis 1 suffered irregular landslides in that area.
“Worked as expected and no unusual situations were identified,” reported the space entity. after the first revisions made to the heat shield, where the amount and size of the burning effect that Artemis 1 presented would have been significantly reduced.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman shared a new photograph of the ship, taken by the team of divers, which shows that there was no loss of material, but the white area seen in the image corresponds to the compression pads.
As for the fear that the same thing would happen as in the Artemis expedition 1engineers thoroughly investigated the causes of the damage and determined that it was due to the accumulation of gas under the outer layer of the shield.
The experts assured that the risk would be prevented by modifying the reentry trajectory of the ship, which they did with Artemis 2. The solution would have been effective, since allowed the safe return of the four astronauts who manned the ship.
NASA reported that it will continue with exhaustive analyzes of all the capsule’s systems, since, although the first images and inspections do not detect anomalies, the complete review is still ongoing.
The capsule will return to the Kennedy Space Center in the coming days, where it will undergo further analysis; Samples of the heat shield will be taken and internal scans with X-rays will be done, according to international media.
— Mission Status🚀💫 (@ARealRocketMan) April 11, 2026