Tag: Artemis II

Although NASA’s unmanned test flight of the Orion spacecraft in December 2022 was hailed as a triumph, the federal space agency found it had less to celebrate when they started examining the capsule, according to a recently released Office of the Inspector General report.

The report, an audit assessing NASA’s readiness to undertake Artemis II, noted the capsule hadn’t held up well upon re-entry during the unmanned test flight. That flight was part of Artemis I, the first mission in a series planned to put boots on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

For Artemis I, the uncrewed spacecraft was launched on November 16, 2022. It spent just over 25 days in orbit and swung around the moon twice before reentering our atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. NASA officials seemed brimming with confidence when they assured the public that we’d be seeing Artemis II, the Orion’s first manned spaceflight, by 2024.

However, in January, that brisk timeline was ultimately adjusted when NASA representatives announced that Artemis II, the first manned Orion flight, would not be launched until September 2025 “at the earliest”, noting that the safety of the astronauts who will one day be aboard the vehicle is paramount.

The delays – which also bumped Artemis III to September 2026 at the earliest, while Artemis IV remains scheduled for 2028 – were allowing space agency teams time for “troubleshooting a battery issue and addressing challenges with a circuitry component responsible for air ventilation and temperature control,” according to the NASA release.

But there was one other reason tucked in there, almost an afterthought: the fact that NASA employees needed time to further investigate the “unexpected loss of char layer pieces to the spacecraft’s heatshield,” although it was expected the investigation would be wrapped up this spring.

Despite how casually NASA reported this issue in January, now the OIG report has made it clear that the Orion’s heat shield problems are more than just a minor nuisance to be sorted out. (Considering faulty heatshields caused the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster, it’s understandable that NASA isn’t eager to make a big deal about this, even though they are certainly working furiously to solve it.)

So even though the Orion’s 2022 test looked fantastic, the report clarifies, in reality the Avcoat material that the heat shield is made of was worn away in more than 100 places by the time it splashed down in the Pacific. On top of that, while the ablative heat shield (aka the char layer) was intended to sort of melt, it ultimately broke off in chunks leaving a debris trail in its wake, a malfunction NASA scientists are still working to understand, according to the report.

“The unexpected behavior of the Avcoat creates a risk that the heat shield may not sufficiently protect the capsule’s systems and crew from the extreme heat of reentry on future missions.”

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“The unexpected behavior of the Avcoat creates a risk that the heat shield may not sufficiently protect the capsule’s systems and crew from the extreme heat of reentry on future missions,” the report states.

In a statement accompanying the report, Catherine Koerner, NASA associate administrator of exploration systems development, tried to strike a positive tone, noting that NASA scientists “successfully recreated char loss,” meaning they are closer to understanding what is causing it.

However, the OIG report also drilled down on this statement, explaining that NASA ultimately “could not reproduce the exact material response or flight environment experienced during Artemis I.”

Considering that Orion will heat up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit during reentry, the report underscored that the fact that the heat shield is breaking off in chunks could translate to a crew that will be unprotected from that heat or by the damage the shield could do to the capsule’s parachutes as it crumbles away.

There were other issues that the OIG report highlighted. The Orion’s bolts melted and eroded (an issue that can only be resolved if the heat shield is addressed, according to the report). The spacecraft’s electrical system had some power distribution problems that NASA is addressing via software adjustments. Plus, the mobile launcher NASA used caused $26 million in damage, well over the $5 million NASA had allocated for cleaning up after Artemis I.

All in all, the report had a clear message: “The Artemis I test flight revealed critical issues that need to be addressed before placing crew on the Artemis II mission,” it concluded.

Back in January when NASA announced the delayed schedule, officials insisted they wouldn’t rush Artemis II or take any shortcuts regarding astronaut safety. Considering what can happen when you strap humans to the top of enormous rockets, fire them into space and then bring them plummeting back to earth like comets streaking through the sky, let’s hope they meant that.