NASA opens hatch of Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft (photo)
NASA has begun unpacking the Orion spacecraft after its epic lunar mission.
Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida opened Orion‘s hatch and began removing cargoes that flew towards it the moon and back aboard the capsule on the artemis 1 mission. This work will take quite some time.
“This week, technicians are removing nine avionics cases from the Orion, which will then be refurbished artemis 2the first mission with astronauts,” said NASA officials wrote in an update (opens in new tab) on Tuesday (January 10).
“In the coming months, technicians will remove any dangerous goods that remain on board. Once complete, the spacecraft will travel to NASA Glenn’s Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility. [in Ohio] for abortion-level acoustic vibration and other environmental tests,” they added.
Related: The 10 most beautiful images from NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission
artemis 1 launched on November 16 from KSC atop a Space Launch System rocket, sending the unmanned Orion on a shakeout cruise to lunar orbit. The mission, the first of NASA’s Artemis program of lunar exploration, wrapped up when Orion crashed off the coast of Baja California on December 11.
The capsule then traveled across the country by truck, back to KSC on December 30. Since then, workers have inspected Orion and its various systems and assessed how they performed during the nearly 26-day Artemis 1 mission.
The capsule’s 5-meter-wide heat shield — the largest of its kind ever flown — is receiving particular attention given the extreme conditions it has experienced. During Orion’s reentry through Earth’s atmosphere on Dec. 11, its heat shield endured temperatures of up to 2,800 degrees Celsius, about half as hot as the surface of Orion. the sun.
These ongoing inspections will help prepare for the Artemis 2 mission, which is scheduled to launch astronauts around the moon in 2024.
If all goes well with that flight, NASA can start gearing up for it Artemis 3, which will land crew members near the moon’s south pole, where the agency plans to build a research outpost by the end of the decade. Artemis 3 is planned to launch in 2025 or 2026.
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside (opens in new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
#NASA #opens #hatch #Artemis #Orion #spacecraft #photo