The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 mission begins heat shielding at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Photos/NASA
FLORIDA – Spaceship Orion for the Artemis 2 mission begins heat shield installation at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The thermal protection system installed on the outside of the aircraft is capable of withstanding heat up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 2,760 degrees Celsius.
The Orion spacecraft will carry a crew of four who are scheduled to launch using the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket NASA at the end of 2024. The mission will take you into space to circle the moon covering a greater distance than any human has ever traveled.
The Artemis 2 mission will use a free-back trajectory profile, which avoids orbital injection combustion on the moon and puts the spacecraft on a return path to Earth. So, the Artemis 2 crew will fly around the moon without actually entering its orbit.
Once the Orion probe completes its lunar trajectory, the Artemis 2 crew will be on its way back to Earth and land in the ocean. So the Orion plane penetrated the layers of the Earth’s atmosphere and landed in the ocean with a parachute.
To protect the spacecraft and its crew of astronauts as Orion penetrates Earth’s gaseous outer atmosphere, a 5 meter diameter heat shield will cover the entire underbelly of the vehicle. When it returns from the moon, Orion will crash into the atmosphere at more than 25,000 miles/hour or 40,230 km/hour.
At that time the temperature on the outside of the capsule will reach 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 2,760 degrees Celsius. Orion’s heat shield will absorb most of that energy, allowing the cabin inside to remain at a comfortable temperature while the astronauts fall back to Earth.
“The engineering team completed the installation of the Artemis 2 heat shield on June 25, within the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at KSC,” NASA said.
2023-07-08 07:06:09
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