The United States will send a new generation of explorers to the moon aboard NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle, or CEV. Making its first flights early in the next decade, Orion is part of the Constellation Program to send human explorers back to the moon, and then on to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

NASA is combining technology developed for the space shuttle with designs used for the Apollo Program to produce elements of the next spacecraft destined to deliver astronauts to the moon. One of these is the ablator heat shield.

Boeing Advanced Systems has completed a developmental heat shield, known as a manufacturing demonstration unit, or MDU, for Orion that is designed to protect future astronauts from extreme heat during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere following lunar and low-Earth orbit missions.

The material used by Boeing for the heat shield is fabricated from phenolic impregnated carbon ablator, or PICA, which was developed by NASA. Fiber Materials Inc., of Biddeford, Maine, produces the material under a contract to Boeing.

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