LOS ANGELES, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- NASA said on Thursday it has identified the technical cause of an unexpected char loss across its Orion spacecraft's heat shield.

The Orion spacecraft, built by NASA and prime contractor Lockheed Martin, is currently the only spacecraft capable of crewed deep space flight and highspeed return to Earth from the vicinity of the moon.

On NASA's Artemis moon exploration missions, Orion will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

During NASA's Artemis I flight test launched on Nov. 16, 2022, Orion's heat shield experienced an unexpected loss of charred material during its re-entry.

Engineers determined as Orion was returning from its uncrewed mission around the moon, gases generated inside the heat shield's ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected, according to NASA.

This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations, according to NASA.

"Our early Artemis flights are a test campaign, and the Artemis I test flight gave us an opportunity to check out our systems in the deep space environment before adding crew on future missions," said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA headquarters in Washington.

"The heat shield investigation helped ensure we fully understand the cause and nature of the issue, as well as the risk we are asking our crews to take when they venture to the moon," Kshatriya said. Enditem

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