Orion Spacecraft Successfully Completes First Mission, First Step To Mars Taken

A manned mission to Mars is closer to reality, thanks to Orion.

The San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting that the Orion spacecraft successfully completed its first launch and splashdown this week. Orion flew over 60,000 miles in total, and was 14 times farther from the earth than the International Space Station’s current distance.

People around the world were able to see the launch from a NASA stream on the internet. The launch, having been delayed once, went off flawlessly, followed by two orbits around the Earth, then a perfect splashdown 600 miles southwest of San Diego. Orion was then transported by the Navy to shore.

The first mission for the Orion Spacecraft was to test many of the separation elements. One main component of that is the jettisoning of the launch abort system, which will protect future Orion astronauts in case of an emergency upon liftoff or ascent into space. Also tested was the separation of the crew module with the service module upon reentry.

The biggest test, however, was that of the heat shield during reentry from deep space, thus why the module gained such altitude. The only manned spaceship to ever go that high was the Apollo 17 mission almost 42 years ago.

Also tested was how Orion’s computers would handle the radiation of Van Allen’s Belt, Orion’s attitude control, and how well the 11 parachutes would work upon reentry. The parachutes are supposed to slow the Orion crew module to just above 20 miles per hour before the module splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.

The whole process of Orion going from 20.000 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour took all of 11 minutes, aided by 8 of the 11 parachutes on board. The final three parachutes were used to guide the module to the water at that rate of speed.

USA Today is reporting that Orion fell about 3,600 miles at almost 20,000 miles per hour, with the spacecraft heating up to over 4,000 degrees. Orion left Cape Canaveral at 7:05 a.m. EST and splashed down at 11:29 a.m. EST.

Mission Control commentator Rob Navias announced to the nation, “There’s your new spacecraft, America.”

Navias later called the journey “the most perfect flight you could imagine.”

Once the Navy had acquired the module from the water, data collection began on over 1,200 sensors, along with inspecting the heat shield.

Some of the data already collected is that a crew on board could have withstood the force of 8.2 g’s, or 8.2 times the force of gravity on Earth.

The $375 million Exploration Flight Test-1 was declared a success on liftoff, flight, and landing. The anticipation is building for this new spacecraft. NASA plans to grab an asteroid in the 2020s, and even a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s. The first step, the spacecraft, looks as though its well on its way. Whether NASA can get the funds from the federal government then will be the hard part.

[Image courtesy of Space Flight Insider]