NASA's Orion Spacecraft Heads Cross Country
A test version of NASA’s Orion spacecraft gears up to take a long road trip.
Starting from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., the mockup will
take a four-week journey across the nation to Naval Base San Diego in
California. There, the test article will be used to support NASA’s Underway
Recovery Test in February 2014. The test will simulate the recovery of Orion
during its first mission, Exploration Flight Test – 1 (EFT-1), scheduled for
September 2014.
The uncrewed EFT-1 mission will take Orion to an altitude of approximately
3,600 miles above the Earth’s surface, reentering the atmosphere at a speed of
over 20,000 miles per hour before landing in the Pacific Ocean.
During the recovery test in San Diego, the spacecraft will be set adrift in
open and unstable waters, providing NASA and the Navy the opportunity to recover
the capsule into the well deck of the USS San Diego. While deployed, the team
will seek out various sea states in which to practice the capsule recovery
procedure in an effort to build their knowledge base of how the capsule recovery
differs in calm and rough seas and what are the true physical limits.
NASA and the Navy practiced recovery in calm seas during a Stationary
Recovery Test in August where the spacecraft was set adrift in the waters of
Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia and recovered into the docked well deck of the
USS Arlington.
The Orion mockup will travel through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona and then reach its final destination in California.
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Follow @NASA_Orion for updates on where the capsule is or is headed
> Once spotted, share your pictures using the hashtag #SpotOrion
> Once spotted, share your pictures using the hashtag #SpotOrion
Image Credit: NASA/David C.
Bowman
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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