Artemis II Flight Hardware

The newly painted Orion heatshield for NASA’s Artemis II mission is secured on a stand inside the high bay of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 20, 2022. Lockheed Martin technicians are preparing the heat shield for installation on the Artemis II Orion crew module. Launching atop the Space Launch System, Artemis II will be the first mission to confirm all of the Orion spacecraft’s systems operate as designed in the actual environment of deep space with astronauts aboard.