It looks like something pulled from the bottom of the sea, but it is NASA’s Orion capsule heat shield after a trip around the moon and back.
A new underwater image shows the Artemis 2 heat shield following splashdown off the coast of San Diego on April 10, when the mission’s Orion capsule safely returned its astronaut crew home.
NASA’s Artemis 2 mission ended a 10-day trip around the moon and back on April 10. It was the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972, when the final mission of NASA’s Apollo program wrapped up.
After splashdown, U.S. Navy divers helped extract the crew from the capsule so the astronauts could continue on their way home.
Before the Orion capsule was taken from the ocean and sent back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for additional study, divers captured underwater images of the capsule and its heat shield.
The image shows the scorched tiles of the heat shield underwater after the capsule’s return through Earth’s atmosphere.
During that return, the Orion capsule traveled at nearly 35 times the speed of sound and may have reached temperatures above 2,800 degrees Celsius.
NASA said the heat shield protected the crew inside the capsule.
Analysis of the returned capsule and heat shield will continue as the agency prepares for its next crewed mission, Artemis 3.
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