KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — As all eyes are on the crewed Artemis II that will see the return of humans to the moon, it pays to look back at the challenges Artemis I had to overcome, such as liquid hydrogen leaks and two hurricanes.
What You Need To Know
- In 2022, NASA attempted to launch the uncrewed Artemis I mission many times, with either mechanical problems or Mother Nature getting in the way
- Don Platt, director of Florida Tech’s Spaceport Education Center, explains what happened to the heat shield during the Orion’s re-entry
- NASA explained that first Artemis I was a test of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule
The crewed Artemis II will have NASA’s Cmdr. Gregory Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen go to the moon for a flyby mission.
But back in 2022, NASA attempted to launch the uncrewed Artemis I mission from Launch Pad 39B many times, with either mechanical problems or Mother Nature getting in the way.
See the previous attempts right below.
From the moment Artemis I launched the Space Launch System rocket and how Orion orbited the moon and returned in a splashdown, all looked OK. Except NASA engineers noticed that something was not right with the capsule’s heat shield.
When Artemis I was re-entering Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 mph (40,234 kph), a material called Avcoat that was on the heat shield did not work as designed.
The Avcoat material is designed to protect a spacecraft from extreme temperatures by burning away as it heats up, instead of sending that heat to the capsule itself.
And the temperatures the Orion experienced during re-entry was 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).
Instead of burning away during re-entry, the Avcoat broke up into chunks.
Don Platt, director of Florida Tech’s Spaceport Education Center, explained what NASA saw.
“Now what they saw with the Artemis I mission was that the erosion rate or how much of the material disappeared, as that got heated up and and went through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, was up more than they thought it would be. And, so of course, the problem with that is that, well, is there enough margin and why is it heating up more than we anticipated that it would? So that, of course, they had to go back to the drawing board then …,” he explained to Spectrum News.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P5GNMXtHyU[/embed]
NASA stated it has resolved the problem, but the issue with the heat shield was the reason why the Artemis II and III missions were pushed.
Artemis II was supposed to be launched in 2025, and Artemis III was going to take off in 2025, but it was pushed back to 2026, with the current launch date being mid-2027.
Platt said NASA used that time to improve on the heat shield.
“NASA has spent time doing additional testing, beefing up the heat shield a little bit in places where it might need it. And, of course, they’ve had a couple of years to go through all of that and, make sure they are indeed ready to go now,” he said.
Spectrum News reached out to NASA for comment and has not yet heard back.
However, during a 2024 press conference, engineers and experts were able to re-create the conditions that the heat shield experienced during re-entry and developed a new method to be applied to the heat shield, said Amit Kshatriya, the deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program Office within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
Officials highlighted that had there been a crew inside the Orion during Artemis I, they would have been safe and comfortable during re-entry, even with the heat shield issue.
NASA had previously stated that the purpose of the Artemis I was to iron out any issues that came up and that they were generally very pleased with how the mission went.
And even though those issues have been ironed out, NASA is currently conducting a wet dress rehearsal on the Artemis II before sending up the four astronauts who will be the first humans to go back to the moon in more than 50 years.
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