NASA Team at Marshall Removes Charred Orion Heat Shield Surface

In this time-lapse video, captured in NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Building 4705 from March 24 to May 15, NASA and Lockheed Martin workers remove burnt ablative material -- or the incinerated outer surface -- from the Orion heat shield. The shield was charred during Orion’s successful flight test in late 2014. The team, led by thermal protection engineers from NASA’s Ames Research Center, used Marshall’s innovative, seven-axis milling machine in Building 4705 to cut away large sections of the ablativ