NASA has been designing spacecraft that can send astronauts to Mars.This week, we will see if their newest project can handle this screeching 20,000-mph re-rentry through the planet’s atmosphere for its first test flight.
It is a very significant test. On Thursday at 7:05 a.m. the unnamed test capsule is set to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on board the Delta IV Heavy rocket. After that it will begin its four-and-a-half-hour, two-orbit mission, which they have called Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1).
Bill Hill, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development comments: “EFT-1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year; this is really our first step on our journey to Mars.”
Even if the test is successful and they are able to launch the craft 3,600 miles and the spacecraft goes higher than any craft before, the Orion mission still faces restricted funding and technical challenges that could make the project unable to complete.
The Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery (SCIFLI) team is based at NASA’s Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Virginia. The team is planning to catch a thermal picture of the super hot re-entry of the Orion spacecraft as it falls back into Earth’s atmosphere after its very first test flight.
SCIFLI principal investigator Tom Horvath said “This is going to be a tough one. Orion will come through the atmosphere at 20,000 miles an hour as a tiny dot in the sky. With the capsule initially hundreds of miles away, it is like we are looking for it through a small soda straw.”
He goes on to say “It is all about getting the aircraft positioned at the right location at a precise point in time. The action will be in the last minute. Temperatures will go from very low to up to 2,204.4 degrees Celsius.”
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