Today the Orion mission was scheduled to launch atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Stations Space Launch Complex Flight Test on the Orion Flight Test: a two-orbit, four-hour flight that will test many of the systems most critical to safety We were talking about it with junior high school students visiting our Columbia Memorial Space Center. It was great to discuss the space history that occurred in Downey and also the importance of future flight and exploration. Such as the Orion. I was able to also tell them the person who will travel to Mars someday has already been born and could be one of them..This is what I told them today: - The Orion Flight Test will evaluate launch and high speed re-entry systems such as avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the heat shield. - In the future, Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. - More powerful than any rocket ever built, SLS will be capable of sending humans to deep space destinations such as an asteroid and eventually Mars. - Exploration Mission-1 will be the first mission to integrate Orion and the Space Launch System. - The first crewed mission for Orion is expected to take place after 2020 - Where is Orion going?.. o On a test flight. The unmanned capsule will travel 3600 miles away from Earth, orbiting the planet twice. It will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at 20,000 mph, withstanding heat as high as 4,000 degrees, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean - What’s new about Orion?.. o For 30 years, the United States flew space shuttles, which were designed to orbit a couple hundred miles above our planet. The shuttles’ distance above Earth’s surface often was roughly the same as the distance from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Like Apollo missions that took the first humans to the moon, Orion capsules are designed to take astronauts far beyond Earth’s gravitational pull, for space exploration. - Why does Orion look like an older space capsule?.. o The conelike shape is a safe, tried-&-true design. Remember, the Columbia space shuttle orbiter suffered fatal damage because of a piece of foam that fell off part of the rocket called the external tank. The Orion capsule will ride on top of a rocket – and foam isn’t going to fall up. Take off was delayed to tomorrow morning but it was still a cool day with our future generation of explorers. I love our youth and I love our history ( and yes, I can now fit into the new rocket after losing a few pounds, Lol. )
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 00:42:01 +0000
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