Why NASA changed the plan

TL;DR

NASA switched from skip-entry to a steeper atmospheric trajectory because the original approach caused the Orion heat shield to crack in over 100 places.

Key Points

• 1.Skip entry destroyed the Orion heat shield. The capsule's dip-and-bounce maneuver slowed heating mid-entry, trapping gas inside the AVCOAT ablative material, which built pressure and cracked the shield in over 100 spots.
• 2.The heat shield material is structurally complex and fragile under uneven heating. AVCOAT is silica fabric and epoxy paste packed into 330,000 honeycomb cells; it's designed to ablate and burn away, but inconsistent heating rates caused catastrophic gas buildup.
• 3.NASA skipped replacing the shield and changed the flight path instead. Replacement was too costly and time-consuming, so for the Artemis splashdown at 25,000 mph, they switched to a steeper, more consistent entry — the first real-world test of whether this fix works.