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Orion Returns to San Diego After Successful Test flight

December 9, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

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NASA’s Orion Spacecraft reached to San Diego after the first test flight. The U.S Navy sent the capsule through a space ship named as USS Anchorage.

Two days ago, the U.S Navy loaded the 11 foot tall cone shaped spacecraft on a truck for Florida. The spacecraft reached Cape Canaveral at 10 p.m on Monday. The sailors of Anchorage shifted the heavy capsule to the naval base. The Orion spacecraft stopped there for two or three days. Afterwards, the US agency sent the spacecraft to the Kennedy Space Center.

Suni Williams, an astronaut travelled on the USS Anchorage in order to study the capsule’s recovery from the Pacific Ocean. Earlier, William successfully accomplished two major expeditions on the International Space station. She spent around 322 days in the space in these two journeys. She took part in the Orion mission from the ground.

William expressed that it is indeed an incredible end of a difficult mission. She thinks it is just the start of the plans to send astronauts into deep space.

Orion traveled nearly 3,600 miles above the first layer of the Earth. The main purpose of this flight is to test all the system of the spacecraft.

The spacecraft completed a journey of four and a half hours. It arrived back in to the Earth with a speed and temperature of 20,000 mph and 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit respectively.

Finally NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Lift Off With ‘Bullseye’ Splashdown!

December 5, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

An unmanned NASA’s Orion spaceship –designed to carry to carry humans to an asteroid and inevitably Mars sprinkled down in the Pacific Ocean Friday to wrap up a prolific first test run.

After two laps of Earth, the Orion shuttle plunged through the atmosphere at 20,000 mph, encompassed in a fireball that singed its heat shield with temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The spaceship evolved intact from its 3,600-mile fall and installed three orange-and-white-striped parachutes to brake its speed to 20 mph as it hit the water at 11:29 a.m. EST, 270 miles west of Baja California. NASA called it a “bull’s eye” landing.

“There’s your new rocket, America,” Mission Control analyst Rob Navias said as the Orion capsule neared the water.

Navias called the adventure “the best flight you could ever envision.”

The scene of a potential profound space crew capsule weaving in the sea, 4.5 hours after lifting off from Florida, reviewed the last return of space explorers from the Apollo moon missions 42 years back.

Recuperation crews promptly started endeavors to tow the capsule to a holding up Navy ship, where heat shield investigations will start and information from 1,200 sensors will be secured on the way back to a San Diego port this weekend.

The $375 million Exploration Flight Test-1 mission launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station just after dawn at 7:05 a.m., on the mission’s second endeavor.

“Launch at sunrise, the beginning of Orion and a new epoch of American space investigation,” said NASA TV reporter Mike Curie.

The organization reported some positive results, saying aboard computers were unaffected by high radiation in space.

The capsule arrived at a top elevation more than 14 times more distant from Earth than the International Space Station. No spaceship planned for space travelers had gone so far since Apollo 17 — NASA’s last moon shot — 42 years back.

NASA required to send Orion that high keeping in mind the end goal to set the group module up for a 20,000-mph, 4,000-degree way in. That was viewed as the most discriminating part of the whole flight — testing the biggest of its kind heat shield for survival before people move on board.

As per the NASA officials, in 11 minutes, Orion impedes from to 20 mph at splashdown, its last plunge helped by eight parachutes installed in sequence. A team aboard would have persevered as much as 8.2 Gs, or 8.2 times the force of Earth gravity, twofold the Gs of a returning Russian Soyuz capsule.

NASA’s Orion Capsule Reached Launch Pad for its Test Flight

November 13, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee 1 Comment

NASA’s new Orion spacecraft has finally reached the launch pad for the next month’s test flight. The spaceship is specially designed to take astronauts to the places beyond the International Space Station. Some of the planned targets of this spacecraft are Mars and Moon.

The Lockheed Martin Space Systems built this gum-drop shaped spacecraft which is known as Orion. It travelled 22 miles, 6 hours journey to reach the Cape, Canaveral launch pad of Florida.

Later on, the experts lifted the spacecraft to the top of Delta IV for the first unmanned flight of 4th December. The Delta IV rocket is designed by the United Launch Alliance. In the next few weeks, the experts will put the rocket and spacecraft together to prepare them for the test flight.

Afterwards, the scientists will check the computer, parachutes, heat shield and other equipments of the new spacecraft.

The orbital test flight of Orion will end in a very short time period of four hours. The spacecraft will move twice around the planet Earth. The spacecraft will travel approximately 3,600 miles away from the planet in order to crash into the atmosphere with the high speed of 20,000 miles per hour. As per the expectations of scientist, the heat Shield of Orion will reach the temperature of around 4,000 Fahrenheit.

Furthermore, the test flight of Orion will provide significant information regarding the performance of systems, recovery operations and the working of huge Colorado- built heat shield.

Bob Cabana, director of Kennedy Space Center informed that it is the first step towards the trip to Red Planet.

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