"Why won’t the spacecraft melt?” is a perfectly reasonable question to ask about this morning's launch to "touch" the Sun. We installed a cutting-edge heat shield made of carbon-composite that will keep our #ParkerSolarProbe spacecraft and its instruments at a relatively comfortable temperature of about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. See for yourself as our engineers take a blowtorch to the shield material 🔥🔥🔥: | NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

103K views · 1.9K reactions | Fabricating an exhaust heat shield in the desert... | Wide Open Design | Facebook

The Progress space vehicles are designed without a heat shield, which is why they burn up when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Students can design, build and test their own heat shields with this hands-on #STEMonStation activity, developed in partnership with Microsoft Education and Hacking STEM: https://go.nasa.gov/32TxVQJ. | NASA JSC Education