"We're pushing Orion's technologies as far as we can so that they give us real data that we can use to improve Orion's design in the future," says Mark Geyer, Orion Program Manager.
NASA marked a major milestone for the journey to Mars yesterday, Friday, 5/12/14 when the Orion spacecraft completed its first journey into space, flying further than any other spacecraft designed for astronauts in over 40 years.
"Today's test flight of Orion is a huge step in our journey to Mars," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The teams have done an excellent job preparing Orion for testing in its real environment, pushing the boundaries of manned spaceflight in the coming years," he said.
Orion took off this morning at 07:05 EST on launch 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida aboard a Delta 4 rocket in the heavy configuration of United Launch Alliance. The Orion crew module landed four and a half hours later in the Pacific Ocean about a thousand kilometers southwest of San Diego.
During the unmanned test flight, Orion passed through the Van Allen Belt twice when it experienced long minutes of intense radiation, reaching an altitude of 5,800 km above Earth. Orion also accelerated to a speed of 32 km/h and experienced temperatures of 2,200 degrees Celsius when it penetrated to the earth's atmosphere.
NASA says that Orion will open the route between Mars and Earth for manned travel. This infrastructure will be valuable for testing the capabilities and conditions that humans will experience on flights to Mars. The spacecraft was tested in space in order to allow engineers to collect critical data to evaluate its performance and improve its design. The heat shield flight test of Orion, the avionics, the computerized parachutes and the components that allow it to separate from the carrier rocket, the service module and more Many of the systems are essential for the safety of astronauts who will fly in Orion.
In future missions, Orion will be launched aboard the heavy SLS (Space Launch System) launcher currently being developed by NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The rocket, which weighs 80 tons, will launch Orion into a distant orbit above the moon in the next mission known as Exploration Mission-1 in which they will be tested The connections between Orion and SLS.
"We're pushing Orion's technologies as far as we can so that they give us real data that we can use to improve Orion's design in the future," says Mark Geyer, Orion Program Manager. "In the coming weeks and months we will examine the valuable information and apply the insights we learned in the next test flight of the Orion spacecraft which is already in the manufacturing process for the first mission aboard the SLS launcher.
Teams from NASA, the US Navy and the Lockheed Martin company on board the ship Anchorage have begun the process of rescuing the spacecraft from the waters of the Pacific Ocean and transferring it to the port of San Diego in the coming days. Orion will be transferred to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for testing. The crew module will be restored and used again on the Ascent Abort-2 test flight in 2018 where Orion's recovery system will be tested in the event of a launch failure.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Successful launch, journey and landing of the Orion spacecraft on the first test flight - Summary of live reports on the knowledge site
- Orion spacecraft launch - infographic and photo gallery
- USA returns to space - first test flight for the "Orion" spacecraft
- NASA is exploring the possibility of giving the moon its own moon
4 תגובות
Eyal
I think it is clear that there is no technological problem. It is easier to put a man on Mars than deep in the ocean. The problem is only financial.
So what do you claim, that the problem is only financial and not technological?
Eyal
What prevents is money.
The expense of sending a spacecraft to Mars is a very large expense, on the other hand, the income from landing on Mars is a promise without a sure cover (except for rocket-propelled slogans that "the progress of science always pays off").
Activating spaceships for movement near the Earth is clearly profitable (not only in terms of passwords). Space stations will have a positive economic and military impact on those who will control them, as well as other projects near the Earth (which have not yet been defined). The United States is very stressed that it does not have heavy launch vehicles near the Earth (to replace space shuttles that have been canceled in about two years). At the moment, the Americans are dependent Russia agrees to help the space program at least with the International Space Station. Russia has already announced that it intends to build a replacement space station to the ISS.
What will the alliance gain from a station on Mars in the next hundred years? Probably nothing. Therefore there is nothing to run and invest there in the coming years.
Why are the schedules so long, it's really frustrating. In one of the articles on the subject, it was written that sending humans to Mars would only happen in 20 years from now at the earliest... Why does it have to take so long? Why not in 10 years? or 5 years? What prevents this from happening sooner?