Howard Hu told reporters that NASA expects 'some char loss, not zero, but not to the magnitude of Artemis I.' His framing acknowledges what NASA has not previously stated explicitly: some char loss is expected. The lofted return eliminates the skip cycle that drove the most severe spalling on Artemis I, but the Avcoat material will still ablate. The crew cleared orthostatic testing and were declared ready for re-entry on Day 8 ; a separate gate from the heat shield question.
Post-recovery inspection will determine whether Hu's expectation was accurate. If char loss exceeds Artemis I levels, it directly contradicts the trajectory fix rationale and implies the underlying Avcoat manufacturing variability identified by the OIG context) is the dominant failure mode rather than the skip cycle.
