Artist’s rendering of the Orion capsule as it separates from the Service Module during its upcoming test flight. Credit: NASA
Orion’s December flight test critical
for deep space human exploration plans
By Mike Killian
This December, after years of
hard work from a team spanning
across the United States, NASA will
put America’s future deep-space
human exploration spacecraft to
the test, flying it further than any
human-rated spacecraft has been in
over 40 years. The highly anticipated
mission, known as Exploration Flight
Test-1 (or EFT-1), will put the agency’s
unmanned Orion capsule into action
to validate the spacecraft’s design,
with the data collected being used
to further perfect Orion’s capabilities
before NASA puts astronauts
onboard for deep-space crewed
missions starting early next decade.
The upcoming 4.5 hour orbital
flight test is currently scheduled to
launch from Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station in Fla. shortly after 8:00
a.m. EDT on December 4, thundering
skyward atop one of the largest
and most powerful launch vehicles
in history; the mammoth United
Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta-IV
Heavy rocket. After its first orbit (two
hours after liftoff) Orion will perform
58
58
a burn to reach an altitude of more
than 3,600 miles—15 times higher
than the orbit of the International
Space Station and 10 times higher
than any human-rated spacecraft
has been since 1972, when the crew
of Apollo 17 visited the Moon.
Doing so will give engineers the
opportunity to evaluate Orion’s
performance in a way only a
real spaceflight can; computer
simulations, scale model tests, and
ground testing only goes so far.
While NASA’s iconic Space Shuttles
carried out missions in low-Earth orbit,
Orion is intended to fly astronauts
on deep space missions, and so
Orion will hit Earth’s atmosphere on
reentry much faster, and harder,
than the Space Shuttle did.
The Shuttles hit the atmosphere
on reentry at around 17,000 mph;
when Orion returns on the EFT-1
mission it will hit the atmosphere
at 20,000 mph, bringing hotter
reentry temperatures of up to 4,000
degrees Fahrenheit to go with its
faster velocity, simulating a return
from a deep space mission and
giving engineers the opportunity
to evaluate its launch and high
speed re-entry systems, avionics,
attitude control, parachutes,
computers, software, guidance
and control, the separation
events, and the performance
of Orion’s critical heat shield.
All of Orion’s avionics components
were installed earlier this summer,
and engineers with Lockheed Martin
(Orion’s prime contractor) have
completed functional testing on
the crew module’s 59 systems—
methodically powering them up
one by one. Performance testing,
where all of the systems work
together to operate Orion as a
whole, was completed last spring
prior to installation of the capsule’s
state-of-the-art ablative heat shield,
which is outfitted with over 200
instrumentation sensors to provide
engineers with data about the heat
shield’s ability to protect Orion.
A titanium skeleton and
carbon-fiber skin gives the heat
shield its shape, and will provide
structural support during landing.
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