Diana 1’s Orion capsule returned safely to Earth. What’s next?

NASA’s Orion passenger space capsule penetrated a huge test, splashed whole in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico on December 11. The successful spin-off complex and delay of the Artemis 1 mission, which sent Orion around the moon and brought it back immediately. the experiment of returning men to the lunar surface.

Now scientists will examine the capsule’s damage, paying attention to how the heat of its shield in the vulnerable air has completed reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, and also the spots where the pre-launch tornado damaged the capsule’s stem. When it entered Earth’s atmosphere, Orion was traveling some four thousand kilometers per hour, but atmospheric drag and massive parachutes slowed it down rapidly. The resulting friction heats the spacecraft to nearly 2700⁰ Celsius, fully testing the ability of the Orion clip to protect the heat from what’s inside the spaceship.

The team will also analyze data from its pilot’s faux astronauts, Moonikin Fields, and the female torsos of his passengers Helga and Zohar (SN: 8/26/22). That data will help determine how much radiation and acceleration real human astronauts will encounter, how well their protective gear works, and how female bodies will fare compared to the Orion space capsule launch. This is scheduled for 2024, when Artemis II will send a manned capsule into lunar orbit. NASA is therefore aiming to land astronauts on the moon in early 2025 on the part of Diana.

Some 140 gigabytes of data have already been retrieved during the nearly monthly flight, “but a lot of data was stored in the vehicle, especially some of the things that were flying inside the crew cabin,” says NASA’s Debbie Korth, Orion’s program replacement. manager

To run Diana II, “the next step is adding the crew and adding the environmental and life support system to the Artemis II spacecraft,” Korth says. Several parts of the Space Launch System rocket that will launch the next flight are being built and the next Orion crew and module work is being tested and completed at the Kennedy Space Center.

“This mission was difficult, and this mission looks like a success,” said NASA’s Mike Sarafin, the Artemis mission manager for this flight during a news conference after the splashdown.

Here’s a look at Orion’s 25.5-day historic journey after the immediate stinging nail on November 16 (SN: 11/16/22).

Day 3: Goodbye, CubeSats

The mission launched with 10 leather-sized CubeSats, which sat between the rocket’s core stage and the Orion spacecraft. On the 3rd of November, the Artemis 1 team confirmed that all 10 had gone through their planned times, but it appears that almost half had either not declined or were not expected to work.

The only ones that seem to be working are ArgoMoon, a European CubeSat that appears to have taken images of the moon and Earth, plus NASA’s BioSentinel experiment, which tests the effect of cosmic rays on warming. NASA’s LunaH-Map CubeSat, which searches for areas of hydrogen and water on the moon’s surface, is operational, although its propulsion system is not working properly.

The Japanese space agency has deployed two CubeSats: HORSE is testing water propulsion in space and is working as expected, but the nation’s lunar lander OMOTENASHI has been in and out of radio contact and its mission has been disrupted.

Orion also did some self-inspection on day 3, cracking its outer pitches to control damage after the first leg of the flight.

Day 4: Radiation test

The sun, which is active in the solar cycle, emitted a fairly large flare on November 19. He was the most active Orion encountered on his journey (although not in the top 50 most powerful of the year) and well. an experiment on how radiation affects passenger manikins. Once back on Earth, scientists can analyze thousands of sensors on those humans to get a better idea of ​​how radiation will affect humans.

The most interesting differences will be between Zohar and Helga. While Zohar is wearing a shirt to protect her radiant abdomen, Helga is not.

Day 8: Can you hear me?

Mission control temporarily lost communication with the space capsule at 47 minutes on November 23. This happened while Orion was trying to communicate with the High Space Network, a large radio dish on Earth that was used to send and receive signals to and from space.

The team downloaded the data file to try to figure out why that happened. They are trying to find out if the question is about the end of Orion or the Deep Space Network part of things. Other Orion check-ins with the same radio network worked perfectly.

Day 10: New Orbit

After the moon’s passage, Orion entered a new orbit with the tracking engine trying to burn in its direction. This remote retrograde orbit would place the capsule more than 65,000 kilometers above the lunar surface.

It was so far from the moon that Orion wouldn’t use much fuel to remain stable, allowing the mission team to test how this spacecraft functions in high-altitude space. They aim to explore its star trails — which the team uses to orient the capsule in space — and other parts of its direction and temperature systems that cannot be explored on Earth.

Day 13: Tooth

Orion reached 432,210 kilometers from Earth, giving him an amazing view of both Earth and the Moon.

Not only was this Orion’s greatest space flight, but it’s the last of any manned space flights. It broke the record that was put in place by Apollo 13 more than 50 years ago.SN: 7/6/19).

Day 20: Goodbye moon

In the kiss goodbye, Orion just passed 129.7 kilometers above the lunar surface. Its engineers designed it to fly so that the force of the moon’s gravity would change the direction of flight.

The ship also fired its main engine for about three and a half minutes to increase speed.

Those actions of Orion broke the sphere of influence of the moon, where the gravity of the moon was the main force acting on it, and brought it back to the Earth.

Day 26: Splashdown!

After a nearly 20-minute descent through the Earth’s atmosphere, passing through dense gaseous layers, the Orion capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean near Guadalupe Island, off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

While hitting the atmosphere at under 40,000 kilometers per hour, it landed on water at 32 km/hr, primarily slowed by Orion’s 5 meter diameter heat shield against the atmosphere. The main material that makes up the shield burned in the atmosphere, as the friction of the craft slowed it down, carrying some intense heat from the capsule. Then, in the last four minutes of descent, a series of 11 parachutes deployed, helping Orion to gently plop into the ocean.

The science mission then checked the temperatures inside and outside the cabin and took other remote measurements before the recovery team rocked it and took it several hours later and brought it to the USS. Portland.

“I don’t think any of us could have imagined this successful mission, but we had a very successful test flight,” Sarafin said. “We now have the foundation of a deep space transportation system.”