Comin' in hot 🔥 Teams recently completed installation of the heat shield for the #Artemis II Orion spacecraft inside the high bay of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASAKennedy Space Center. The 16.5-foot-wide (~5 meters) heat shield is one of the most important systems on the Orion spacecraft ensuring a safe return of the astronauts aboard. As the spacecraft returns to Earth following its mission around the Moon, it will travel at speeds of about 25,000 mph (approx. 40,200 km/h) and experience outside temperatures of nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (~2700 degrees Celsius), about half as hot as the Sun. Inside the spacecraft, however, astronauts will experience a much more comfortable temperature in the mid-70s (around 23 degrees Celsius) thanks to Orion’s thermal protection system. Following the recent installation of the heat shield, the spacecraft will next be outfitted with some of its external panels ahead of acoustic testing later this summer. These tes...