The highly anticipated Orion space mission was postponed by a
day due to a volley of reasons. NASA had to postpone the launch scheduled for
Dec 4th after a boat entered the launch area, strong winds forced
automatic aborts and the two valves of the liquid hydrogen chamber failed to
close properly. On Dec 5th, near perfect execution of all the stages
of the Orion mission galvanised NASA’s future Mars exploration missions. Orion
is NASA’s next-generation spacecraft built to carry human beings deeper into
space with a goal of undertaking a manned mission to the red planet by 2030. To
accomplish the task, Orion was built to scale higher speeds, to withstand the
extreme temperatures and radiations of the inner space.
Orion was launched on a ULA Delta IV Heavy Rocket from Cape
Canaveral, Florida. Its entire flight spanned for four and half hours. As it
began to orbit around earth, its protective panels detached from the safety
system known as the launch abort system following which engines in the upper
section had fired. It lopped earth twice and reached an altitude of 5808 kilometres,
15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS). One of the critical
phases has been the journey through Van Allen belt a dense radiation zone. Scientists
had apprehensions about this part of journey as radiations were believed to harm
the guidance system of Orion, computers and other electronics on board and
astronauts too. When Orion reached its highest point, the upper stage of rocket
triggered separation to propel its return journey to earth. As Orion began to
re-enter earth’s atmosphere, it encountered temperatures twice the burning
lava, roughly 2200 Celsius. Space craft reached speeds of 32,000kmph during its
re-entry. Finally a series of four giant parachutes tried to decelerate the
craft and it splashed down into Pacific Ocean 400 miles west of La Paz, Mexico.
The craft was designed to make touch down at a speed of 32kmph as higher speeds
could disorient the crew inside. The capsule has been located by a drone. After
its retrieval from water, it was been carried back to NASA for further
analysis. The flight was meant to validate avionics, heat shielding mechanisms
and parachutes.
Orion flew faster than any space craft designed so far since
the Apollo moon programme. The capsule was designed to carry 6 astronauts into
deep space. It 16 ft heat shield and the sophisticated service module are the
ones which will be critically tested. NASA has also developed emergency abort function
to save the astronauts in the event of any malfunction during the launch. The
entire mission costed $370 million. The spectacular success of the Orion flight
has boosted NASA, which is planning for an unmanned flight for 2018 and a
manned mission or rather a flight along the moon’s orbit by 2020. It plans to
send astronaut to an asteroid and Mars by 2030.
US once a space super power, had to end its Space Shuttle
Program in 2011 following which it has been buying two seats in Russian Soyuz
to fly to and from the ISS. To send spacecrafts to moon and beyond, NASA is
developing Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket larger than Saturn Vs which took
astronauts to moon in 1960’s. Orion had an instrument Bird (battery operated
independent radiation detector) on board to monitor radiation while in space.
This is a major health concern for humans undertaking as Mars voyage which will
last for 9-12 months. Orion capsule bears a close resemblance to the Apollo craft
that ferried astronauts to moon 40 years back. Though NASA’s future missions
are not made public, it is certainly gearing for several ambitious programmes
in near future.
@ Copyrights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment