The Super Guppy, a NASA spacecraft, has arrived in California with a key component for the Artemis Moon Mission. - Brinkwire

9, crews flew the heat shield skin for a future voyage of NASA’s Orion spacecraft to Moffett Federal Airfield using the agency’s Super Guppy oversize freight transport aircraft.

The heat shield skin for NASA’s Artemis IV mission, the third crewed journey to the Moon, is currently in the next phase of manufacture at Moffett Federal Airfield at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

The heat shield of the Orion spacecraft shields the ship and the crew within from the immense heat created as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.

The Orion heat shield and its accompanying skin are the largest heat shield bases ever constructed for human spaceflight missions, measuring 16.5 feet in diameter.