Heat shield under fire | Space photo of the day for Aug. 26, 2026

At the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, researchers are testing the capsule heat shield for the Draco mission.(Image credit: ESA)Sometimes, to accomplish your mission, you have to start a few fires. What is it? At the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) in Belgium, researchers put a heat shield to the test, blasting it with scorching-hot flames to see how it would handle the intense temperatures it would experience when reentering Earth's atmosphere. The heat shield is for Drac