NASA finds Artemis II Orion heat shield showed only nine char loss sites

NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reported that after reviewing data from the Artemis II mission, the Orion capsule's heat shield showed only about nine sites of char loss, a dramatic improvement from the more than 100 sites, some over an inch deep, seen after Artemis I. NASA had altered Orion's reentry trajectory rather than redesign the heat shield following the 2022 issues, and the approach appears to have worked as the crew safely splashed down in the Pacific.