Washington:
NASA’s Orion space capsule crashed safely into the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, completing the Artemis 1 mission — a more than 25-day trip around the moon with a view to returning humans there in just a few years.
After racing through Earth’s atmosphere at 40,000 kilometers per hour (25,000 mph), the uncrewed capsule floated out to sea using three large red-and-white parachutes, as seen on NASA TV.
Splash down.
After traveling 2.4 million miles in space, orbiting the moon and collecting data that will prepare us to send astronauts into the future #Artemis missions, the @NASA_Orion spacecraft is home. pic.twitter.com/ORxCtGa9v7
— NASA (@NASA) December 11, 2022
After a few hours of testing, the ship will be recovered by a US Navy ship in the waters off Mexico’s Baja California coast.
The gumdrop-shaped capsule had to withstand a temperature of 2,800 degrees Celsius (5,000 Fahrenheit) — about half the surface of the sun — when it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
The main purpose of this mission was to test Orion’s heat shield – for the day when it’s humans and not mannequins riding in it.
Achieving success in this mission was key for NASA, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in the Artemis program to return humans to the moon and prepare for an onward journey, one day, to Mars.
An initial test of the capsule was conducted in 2014, but then it remained in Earth’s orbit and re-entered the atmosphere at a slower speed of about 20,000 miles per hour.
– Choppers, divers and boats –
The USS Portland was positioned to recover the Orion capsule in an exercise NASA has been rehearsing for years. Helicopters and inflatable boats were also used for this task.
The falling spacecraft slowed to a speed of 20 miles (30 kilometers) per hour when it finally reached the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
NASA is now hovering Orion for two hours — much longer than if astronauts were inside — to collect data.
“We’ll see how the heat recedes into the crew module and how that affects the temperature inside,” Jim Geffre, NASA’s Orion vehicle integration manager, said last week.
Divers will then attach cables to hoist the Orion onto the USS Portland, an amphibious transport ship whose rear will be partially submerged. This water is slowly pumped out so that the spacecraft can rest on a platform designed to hold it.
This should all take about four to six hours after the crash.
The Navy ship will then sail to San Diego, California, where the spacecraft will be unloaded a few days later.
On its return to Earth, the spacecraft has traveled 2.4 million miles since it took off on Nov. 16 using a monstrous rocket called SLS.
At its closest point to the moon, it flew less than 80 miles from the surface. And it broke the distance record for a habitable capsule, venturing 268,000 miles (432,000 kilometers) from our planet.
– Artemis 2 and 3 –
Salvaging the spacecraft will allow NASA to collect data critical to future missions.
This includes information on the ship’s post-flight condition, data from monitors that measure acceleration and vibration, and the performance of a special vest fitted to a mannequin inside the capsule to test how humans experience exposure while flying through space. radiation can be shielded.
Some capsule components should be good for reuse in the Artemis 2 mission, already at an advanced stage of planning.
This next mission, scheduled for 2024, will take a crew to the moon, but still without landing on it. NASA is expected to announce the names of the selected astronauts shortly.
Artemis 3, scheduled to launch in 2025, will see a spacecraft land on the moon’s south pole for the first time, where water can be seen in the form of ice.
Only 12 people – all white men – have set foot on the moon. They did so during the Apollo missions, the last of which was in 1972.
Artemis is supposed to send a woman and a person of color to the moon for the first time.
NASA’s goal is to establish a lasting human presence on the moon, through a base on the surface and a space station orbiting it. By teaching humans to live on the moon, engineers could develop technologies for a year-long journey to Mars, perhaps in the late 2030s.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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