US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has decided to postpone the assembly of the superheavy rocket Space Launch System (SLS), is intended for the lunar mission of the Artemis program. The fact is that engineers continue to study the readiness of the protective shield of the Orion spacecraft.

A heat shield placed in the base of Orion’s command compartment must absorb the brunt of the heat flow after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the 10-day expedition. During Artemis I’s unmanned test flight in 2022, when temperatures reached 2,760 degrees Celsius upon return to our planet, this part of the structure survived overheating. However, the ship lost some of its heat shield coating.

Therefore, NASA launched internal and independent studies to examine the heat shield issue.

“We haven’t made any formal decisions about what to do next because we’re still doing our analysis,” said Kathryn Koerner, NASA’s associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development.

Possible solutions to the heat shield issue include reorienting the spacecraft on re-entry or modifying the shield. The latter option would require partial disassembly of the Orion spacecraft, which would push the launch date from September 2025 to 2027 at best. The easiest option is to do nothing and continue the Artemis II mission as is.