Orion Is Changing Mankind's Destiny
With a carefully tuned-in ear and eye, the world of scientists who anxiously await each of Orion's operational and launch tests in a similar way, I suppose, as to the first time man sent a cosmonaut into space. Except this time around, there is no Cold War, no race to the moon, no 'I am better than you child-like behavior'. Instead cooperation amongst multi-national teams of scientist rule the day, and with it has come progress!
Completely surrounded by a massive 20-foot-high structure called the crew module static load test fixture, the Orion crew module is being put through a series of tests that simulate the massive loads the spacecraft would experience during its mission.
For those of you who do not know, Orion is NASA’s new exploration spacecraft, designed to carry
humans farther into space than ever before. During its first flight test next
year, Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), it will travel 3,600 miles into space
and return to Earth. This will allow NASA to evaluate Orion’s performance in
preparation for future deep space journeys.
Lockheed Martin Space
Systems began static loads testing May 3 on the Orion EFT-1 crew module inside
the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building at Kennedy Space Center in
Florida. Technicians will use hydraulic cylinders to slowly apply pressure to
various areas of the vehicle to simulate the loads it will be exposed to at
different phases of the mission.
The tests will run throughout May and
June, with different phases simulating launch, ascent, launch abort, launch
abort system separation, reentry and landing. Lockheed Martin is conducting the
tests based on a set of prototype flight requirements.
During the months and weeks leading up to the static tests, NASA and
Lockheed Martin engineers and technicians configured Orion for its placement on
the test fixture and staged the associated equipment and hardware that would be
needed to verify Orion is one step closer to being flight ready.
The
pressurized crew module will be put through a series of eight different load
tests, each one taking up to three days to complete. Each test will focus on a
different area of the crew module and require a different configuration of the
hydraulic actuators that are attached to it.
One of the tests also will allow engineers to test
repairs they made to cracks in the crew module’s aluminum bulkhead that occurred
last November. The cracks appeared as the vehicle was being pressurized for a
proof pressure test aimed at verifying the vehicle’s structural integrity and
validating engineering models used to design it.
More
than 1,600 strain gauges have been attached to Orion’s external surface and
inside the crew module to verify the crew cabin structure. Cameras have been
placed around Orion to record any movement during the load tests.
Several other sensors have been attached at various locations around and
beneath Orion to measure any deflection or expansion during the repeat of the
proof pressure test.
The set of tests are critical to build the
foundation for the future of spaceflight since we learn from our successes and
challenges.”
EFT-1 is
scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket from
Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in 2014. The
agency’s Space Launch System rocket will begin launching Orion in 2017.
What was once a dream is now becoming a true reality.
Best wishes to our friends at LMSS.
The World Has Four Corners But Space Is Endless. The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. - H.G. Wells, "The Discovery of the Future," 1901
