Die NASA stellt den Rekord bezüglich des „fehlenden Teils“ des Hitzeschilds von Artemis 2 klar | Social-Media-Nutzer wiesen schnell darauf hin, dass es sich offenbar um ein großes Stück fehlendes Material am Boden des Raumfahrzeugs handelte.

>NASA’s Artemis 2 mission returned to Earth in a blaze of glory on Friday. During atmospheric reentry, the Orion capsule’s heat shield protected the spacecraft and its crew from temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius), but after splashdown, some in the spaceflight community were quick to point out what looked like unusual damage.

>One photo in particular made the rounds on social media over the weekend. The zoomed-in image appears to show a large chunk of material missing from the underside of Orion, where the heat shield is located. Controlled ablation is expected during atmospheric reentry, as this is how the shield transfers heat away from the spacecraft. Still, the photo led some to speculate that this missing chunk was a sign of abnormal ablation.

>In response to an X post by Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman set the record straight.

>“The discoloration was not liberated material,” he wrote. “The white color observed corresponds to the compression pad area and is consistent with the local geometry, AVOCAT byproducts, and transitional heating environments. We observed this behavior in arc jet testing and expected it in this compression pad area.”

maybe a shark bit it off after splashdown

Talk about burying the lead in this news article.