With just six months until its first
trip to space,
NASA’s Orion spacecraft continues taking shape at
the agency's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Engineers began stacking the crew
module on top of the completed service module Monday, the first step
in moving the three primary Orion elements –crew module, service
module and launch abort system – into configuration for launch.
Orion's flight test will provide NASA
with important data that will help the agency test out systems and
further refine the design so they can safely send humans far into the
solar system.
With the crew module now in place, the
engineers will secure it and make the necessary power connections
between to the service module over the course of the week. Once the
bolts and fluid connector between the modules are in place, the
stacked spacecraft will undergo electrical, avionic and radio
frequency tests.
The modules are being put together in
the Final Assembly and System Testing Cell in the Operations and
Checkout Facility at Kennedy. Here, the integrated modules will be
put through their final system tests prior to rolling out of the
facility for integration with the United Launch Alliance Delta IV
Heavy rocket that will send it on its mission.
Orion is being prepared for its first
launch later this year, an unmanned flight that will take it 3,600
miles above Earth, in a 4.5 hour mission to test the systems critical
for future human missions to deep space. After two orbits, Orion will
reenter Earth’s atmosphere at almost 20,000 miles per hour before
its parachute system deploys to slow the spacecraft for a splashdown
in the Pacific Ocean.
Orion's flight test also will provide
important data for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket
and ocean recovery of Orion. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, have built an advanced adapter
to connect Orion to the Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch the
spacecraft during the December test. The adapter also will be used
during future SLS missions. NASA’s Ground Systems Development and
Operations Program, based at Kennedy, will recover the Orion crew
module with the U.S. Navy after its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
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