Orion’s inaugural launch on Dec. 5, 2014 atop United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida at 7:05 a.m. Credit: Alex Polimeni/Zero-G News/AmericaSpace
Orion’s inaugural launch on Dec. 5, 2014 atop United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida at 7:05 a.m. Credit: Alex Polimeni/Zero-G News/AmericaSpace
Expanded with a growing gallery![/caption]
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – After four decades of waiting, the dawn of a new era in space exploration finally began with the dawn liftoff of NASA’s first Orion spacecraft on Friday, Dec. 5, 2014.
The picture perfect liftoff of Orion on its inaugural unmanned test flight relit the path to send humans beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since the launch of Apollo 17 on NASA’s final moon landing mission on Dec. 7, 1972.
NASA’s first Orion spacecraft blasts off at 7:05 a.m. atop United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy Booster at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 5, 2014. Launch pad remote camera view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orion soared to space atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket at 7:05 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Enjoy the spectacular launch photo gallery from my fellow space journalists and photographers captured from various up close locations ringing the Delta launch complex.
Tens of thousands of spectators descended upon the Kennedy Space Center to be an eyewitness to history and the new space era – and they were universally thrilled.
Orion is the first human rated spacecraft to fly beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 and was built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
The EFT-1 mission was a complete success.
The Orion program began about a decade ago.
America’s astronauts flying aboard Orion will venture farther into deep space than ever before – beyond the Moon to Asteroids, Mars and other destinations in our Solar System starting around 2020 or 2021 on Orion’s first crewed flight atop NASA’s new monster rocket – the SLS – concurrently under development.
Watch for Ken’s ongoing Orion coverage from onsite at the Kennedy Space Center about the historic launch on Dec. 5.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Apollo 17 launch on Dec. 7, 1972. Credit: Julian Leek
NASA’s first Orion spacecraft blasts off at 7:05 a.m. atop United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy Booster at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 5, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com Orion at dawn moments before liftoff on Dec. 5, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
A sketchnote-style infographic created in honor of the EFT-1 test flight for the Orion capsule. Credit and copyright: Gary Schroeder.
For many of us, it’s easier to comprehend complex processes when they are expressed visually. That was the impetus for artist Gary Schroeder in creating this wonderful hand-sketched infographic for NASA’s Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) for the Orion spacecraft.
“Being very interested in the follow-on program to the Shuttle, I wanted to pay close attention to exactly what was going to happen during the Orion launch from liftoff to splashdown,” Schroeder told Universe Today. “Drawing on my experience in sketchnoting (the practice of taking notes using both words and drawings), I thought an infographic-style sketchnote of EFT-1 would be fun to make. I made one study sketch in the morning based on some quick internet research, let it percolate in my head during the day, and came home after work to render a final version.”
Schroeder created the original artwork in pencil, then scanned it and colorized it in Photoshop.
He uploaded it to Flickr just yesterday and it already has nearly 14,000 views. “It’s been exciting for me to see so much interest in this drawing,” he said.
This just proves that sometimes a little bit of ‘throwback’ goes great with technology!
Artist depiction of Huygens landing on Titan. Credit: ESA
It’s almost exactly 10 years ago that humanity parachuted a spacecraft into Titan, that moon of Saturn that could hold chemistry similar to what sat on Earth before life arose. Called Huygens, the probe survived for just about an hour on the surface on Jan. 14, 2005, transmitting information back about conditions there and on the way down.
Huygens is long dead, but its carrier craft is doing just fine. On Dec. 10, Cassini will make the 107th close pass by Titan to learn more about the moon’s atmosphere. Although Huygens made it to the surface fine, showing at least a basic understanding of how a parachute behaves on Titan, there’s still so much more we need to learn.
Specifically, Cassini’s different instruments have been coming up with different answers for Titan’s atmospheric density, so this flyby is hoping to resolve some of that. In part, they hope to get more accurate measurements by measuring how much drag the spacecraft experiences when it flies past the moon.
Titan’s landscape as seen by the Huygens probe descent through Saturn’s largest moons atmosphere (credit: ESA, NASA, JPL, UA, Rene Pascal)
When Huygens probed the atmosphere on its way down, scientists figured that its measurements agreed in many ways with those taken by the flying-by Voyager 2 spacecraft previously. That said, the probe also discovered “a significant correspondence of wind shear and buoyant stability structures” in the stratosphere and lower tropopause of Titan, according to a 2006 presentation on Huygens results.
An Ariane 5 heads spaceward. Credit: Ariane.tv screenshot.
A new generation of space rockets ready to lift new and exciting payloads spaceward is coming to a sky near you.
Tomorrow, a Delta IV Heavy rocket will boost the Orion space capsule on a two orbit journey around the Earth that will test key systems. And though tomorrow’s launch is uncrewed, the Orion Command Module will one day form the core of NASA’s Orion MPCV Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and is slated to care out humanity’s first mission to an asteroid and beyond in the next decade.
But a second, lesser known launch also leaves Earth tomorrow as well, atop a rocket that will soon give way to a new generation of lift boosters as launch services vie for new customers. Just over eight hours after the launch of EFT-1, an Ariane 5 rocket lifts off from French Guiana with GSAT-16.
The EFT-1 Delta IV Heavy posed for roll out. Credit: Jason Major. @JPMajor
Is the ‘battle of the boosters’ heating up?
This comes after the December 2nd announcement earlier this week by participating members of the European Space Agency to proceed with the development of the next generation Ariane 6 rocket. Also included in the 5.9 billion Euro (7.3 billion USD) budget proposal is funding for the 2018 ExoMars mission, along with further support of ESA’s International Space Station commitments.
To date, ESA has fielded five of its Automated Transfer cargo Vehicles (ATVs) on missions to the International Space Station. ESA will also design the Service Module segment of the Orion MPCV.
“I can summarize this ministerial council by say it was a success… I’d even go so far as to say that it is a great success,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, the director-general of the European Space Agency.
The Ariane 6 is expected to be on the launch pad by 2020, and will feature two variants capable of placing 5 to 11 tonnes in a geostationary transfer orbit. The solid fuel booster to be incorporated will be based on the Vega rocket design, while the upper stage Vinci engine is already currently in development.
A look at the Ariane 6 rocket. Credit Wikimedia Commons, SkywalkerPL.
The design has been hotly contested among European Space Agency members, many of whom are in favor of other variants based on the upgraded Ariane 5. Some of the largest rockets of all time included those developed by NPO Energia, capable of lofting 100,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit. An Energia N1 Moon rocket exploded on the pad on July 3rd 1969, effectively ending the Soviet Union’s bid to put a man on the Moon. In comparison, the massive Saturn V rocket — thus far, the largest and most powerful ever fielded by the United States — could deploy the equivalent of 118,000 kg to low Earth orbit and 47,000 kg to a Trans-Lunar Insertion orbit around the Moon.
But that’s just the beginning. Though the Orion capsule will ride atop a United Launch Services Delta IV Heavy tomorrow — a system usually employed for launching clandestine spy satellites — NASA hopes to have its own Space Launch System (SLS) rocket sitting on the pad by the end of 2018. Boeing was awarded the contract for SLS earlier this year, and the system largely rose re-imagined from the ashes of the cancelled Constellation program. The SLS Block 1 is expected to have a lift capacity of 70,000 kg to LEO, while Boeing’s proposed SLS Block 2 variant would, if fielded, have the largest lift capacity of all time at 130,000 kg to LEO. Only the Long March 9 proposed by China approaches that lofty goal.
An artist’s concept of Orion headed towards deep space. Credit: NASA.
And the wild card is Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Already in the game of sending cargo via its Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, SpaceX is developing a reputation for dependability when it comes to getting satellites into orbit at relatively low cost. SpaceX hopes to field its Falcon 9 Heavy with a lift capacity of 53,000 kg to LEO sometime in 2015, and many proposed missions are banking on the the Falcon 9 Heavy as a future service provider for solar system exploration. Certainly, with the recent failure of the Antares rocket on October 28th, SpaceX may look like the more attractive option to many, and the development of the Ariane 6 is expected to face stiff competition in the brave new world of high tech rocketry.
Ever wonder what all of these launch vehicles and spacecraft past and present look like stacked up against each other? There’s a graphic for that, recently featured on Io9:
A breakdown and comparison of spacecraft launch systems. Click to enlarge. Credit: Reddit user Heaney555.
From Almaz to Zarya, this is a fascinating study in scale comparison. Be sure to zoom in and check out the tiny ant-like crew compliment of each, also to scale. Of course, the backyard satellite-tracker in us can’t help be notice the brightness-versus size comparison for many of these. For example, the International Space Station on a good pass can appear as bright as Venus at -4th magnitude — and even look “TIE Fighter shaped” in binoculars — while the smaller Shenzhou and Soyuz modules are often barely visible as they pass overhead. And how we miss watching the Shuttle paired with the International Space Station as they both glided silently by:
But such orbital drama can still be caught if you know when and where to look for it. And speaking of which, viewers in western Australia and the southwestern United States may be able to see Orion and EFT-1 on its first lap around the Earth tomorrow before it fires its engines over the Atlantic headed for a 5,800 km apogee over southern Africa. Assuming EFT-1 lifts off at the beginning of its 159 minute launch window at 7:05 AM EST/12:05 UT, expect it to see it crossing dusk skies over western Australia at 55 minutes after liftoff, and dawn skies for the southwestern U.S. at 95 minutes post-launch respectively.
An awesome sight to behold indeed, marking the start of a brave new era of space exploration.
So what do you, the astute and space-minded reader of Universe Today think? Are the SLS and its kin the lift vehicle(s) of the future, or ‘rockets to nowhere?’ Will they survive the political winds that are bound to blow over the coming decade? Will the Ariane 6 best the Falcon 9 as the lift platform of choice?
One thing is for sure, expect coverage of space exploration drama and more to continue here at Universe Today!
Carbon dioxide ice begins to feel the heat in the south pole region every spring. In this image of 'Inca City' taken in August 2014, you can see a few fans coming out from channels (araneiforms) that are created when pressurized gas escapes from the melting ice. Picture taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
We’ve been watching Mars with spacecraft for about 50 years, but there’s still so little we know about the Red Planet. Take this sequence of images in this post recently taken by a powerful camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Spring arrives in the southern hemisphere and produces a bunch of mysteries, such as gray-blue streaks you can see in a picture below.
That’s where citizen scientists can come in, according to a recent post for the University of Arizona’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera that took these pictures. They’re asking people with a little spare time to sign up for Planet Four (a Zooniverse project) to look at mysterious Mars features. With amateurs and professionals working together, maybe we’ll learn more about these strange changes you see below.
On Aug. 20, 2014, Martian dust mounds are on top of the araneiforms in ‘Inca City’, as well as dark areas on the terrain showing where the ice cap in the southern hemisphere burst and sent gas and dust into the surroundings. Fans in the area are pointing in multiple directions, showing how the wind has changed. Image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaOn Aug. 25, 2014, more fans and blotches appear on the Martian landscape around “Inca City”, a location in the southern polar region, as the ice bursts in the springtime sun. Image obtained by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaAs of Sept. 6, 2014, fans in “Inca City” in the Martian southern hemisphere are now blue-gray. Why this color appears in the spring is unknown. It could be because of particles falling into ice underneath, or gas bursting from the ice condensing and falling as frost. It could even be a combination of the two. Image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaAs spring takes hold in the southern polar region of Mars on Sept. 27, 2014, cracks are now developing in the ice at “Inca City” with multiple new dust fans appearing. Cracks develop when the ice does not have a path to easily rupture and release gas. Picture taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Screenshot of ground testing of the Orion spacecrafts "glass cockpit." Credit: NASA/YouTube (screenshot)
If it’s good enough for a Boeing 787, it’s gotta be good enough for space, right? NASA’s Orion spacecraft — poised for its first uncrewed flight on Thursday (Dec. 4) — will eventually include a “glass cockpit” that will make it easier for astronauts to step across the Solar System, based on the passenger jet avionics.
Why go for glass over switches? The huge benefit is weight (which means less fuel expended to heft the spacecraft), according to the NASA video above.
“One big benefit is the weight savings because you don’t need to have a physical switch,” said astronaut Lee Morin, who was involved in the design, in the video. “With a physical switch, not only is there the weight of the switch, but you also have the weight of the wire to the switch, and you have to have the weight of the circuity that takes that wire and feeds it into the vehicle computers.”
This means that the new spacecraft will sport only 60 physical switches for the astronauts to control (the video did not specify what they would do), which could also be simpler in terms of usability.
The cockpit, however, is not quite ready for prime-time. Although Exploration Test Flight-1 (ETF-1) will have most of the Orion systems included in the crew portion, the glass cockpit will not be among them, according to the flight’s press kit. “The only crew module systems that will not fly on this vehicle are the environmental control and life support system; and the crew support systems such as displays, seats and crew-operable hatches,” it reads.
But there will be more testing ahead. Orion is slated to run its next flight in about 2017 or 2018, which could include a more complete spacecraft at that time. Meanwhile, people are already starting to gather for the test flight, which will see the deepest space exploration by a crew capsule since the Apollo era. Orion will roar into space and return for a high-speed re-entry to make sure that heat shield works when NASA sticks people inside.
NASA’s new countdown clock was powered up at the Press Site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time on Dec. 1, 2014 for use with Orion’s first launch on Dec. 4, 2014. Note former shuttle launch pad 39A in the background above clock. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER – Just in the nick of time, NASA powered up its new countdown clock at the Press Site to tick down towards blastoff of the first launch of the agency’s new Orion crew capsule on Dec. 4 that will carry a new generation of explorers to exciting new destinations further into deep space than ever before.
Without any fanfare, NASA premiered the new digital clock today, Monday, Dec. 1, to replace the world famous analog clock – seen by countless billions across the globe – that was recently retired and detailed in my story – here.
Check out and compare the new and old countdown clocks in my exclusive photos herein.
“We were in a race against time to remove the old clock and replace it with the new clock over the Thanksgiving holiday period,” said NASA Kennedy Space Center spokesman George Diller in an exclusive interview with Universe Today on Monday.
“The plan was to have it ready in time for the first launch of Orion on Dec. 4,” Diller told me.
A new countdown display has been constructed in the place of the former analog countdown clock at the Press Site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Orion’s first launch. The display is a modern, digital LED display akin to stadium monitors. It allows television images to be shown along with numbers. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
A team was working during the holiday.
Why replace the old clock?
“It was getting harder and harder to find the spare parts needed to fix the clock”.
“The original clock was designed in the 1960s”, Diller explained. It has been counting down launches, both manned and unmanned, for more than four decades.
“The clock has been in use since the Apollo 12 moon landing mission in November 1969.”
NASA’s 135th, and final, shuttle mission takes flight on July 8, 2011, at 11:29 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida bound for the ISS and the high frontier with Chris Ferguson as Space Shuttle Commander. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
It was used continuously throughout the remaining Apollo launches and then for all 135 shuttle launches until the final shuttle mission STS-135 blastoff in July 2011. Since then it has been used exclusively on a plethora of unmanned NASA science launches and resupply missions to the International Space Station.
The old countdown clock was last used in September 2014 during the SpaceX CRS-4 launch to the ISS, which I attended along with the STS-135 launch.
The clock and adjacent US flag are officially called “The Press Site: Clock and Flag Pole” and were listed in the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 21, 2000.
In the past few days workers dismantled and hauled off the old clock and installed the new one in place.
But the original base was left in place. The new clock is about the same length as the historic one, with a screen nearly 26 feet wide by 7 feet high.
While not true high-definition, the video resolution will be 1280 x 360.The new countdown clock sports a widescreen capability utilizing the latest breakthroughs in outdoor LED display technology, says NASA.
Space Shuttle Endeavour blasts off on her 25th, and final, mission from Pad 39 A on May 16, 2011, at 8:56 a.m. View from the world famous countdown clock at T-Plus 5 Seconds. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The display can provide images from multiple sources, as well as the countdown launch time. It was cool to see the new clock in action today.
As currently envisaged, the historic Countdown Clock was moved to the nearby Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSCVC).
It will be placed on permanent display for the public to see for the first time at the KSCVC main entrance sometime early next year, Diller explained.
The new countdown clock in contact view with the VAB, Launch Control Center (LCC), US Flag, and SLS Mobile Launcher at the Press Site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will be used for the first time with Orion’s first launch on Dec. 4, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
NASA TV will provide several hours of live Orion EFT-1 launch coverage with the new countdown clock – starting at 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 4.
Watch for Ken’s ongoing Orion coverage and he’ll be onsite at KSC in the days leading up to the historic launch on Dec. 4.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Ken Kremer
………….
Learn more about Orion, SpaceX, Antares, NASA missions and more at Ken’s upcoming outreach events:
Dec 1-5: “Orion EFT-1, SpaceX CRS-5, Antares Orb-3 launch, Curiosity Explores Mars,” Kennedy Space Center Quality Inn, Titusville, FL, evenings
Artist's conception of the Dawn spacecraft approaching the asteroid Ceres. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The year 2015 is going to be a big one for far-off spacecraft. Among them is the long-running Dawn mission, which is on its way to the dwarf planet Ceres (by way of Vesta) and should settle into orbit in April after a radiation blast delayed the original flight plan.
And today (Dec. 1) comes a special day for Dawn — when it turns its cameras to Ceres to capture the world, which will appear about nine pixels across. The reason? Besides scientific curiosity, it turns out to be a perfect calibration target, according to NASA.
“One final calibration of the science camera is needed before arrival at Ceres,” wrote Marc Rayman, the mission director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a recent blog post.
“To accomplish it, the camera needs to take pictures of a target that appears just a few pixels across. The endless sky that surrounds our interplanetary traveler is full of stars, but those beautiful pinpoints of light, while easily detectable, are too small for this specialized measurement. But there is an object that just happens to be the right size. On Dec. 1, Ceres will be about nine pixels in diameter, nearly perfect for this calibration.”
The Dawn spacecraft’s first image of Ceres, taken July 20, 2010. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MPS/DLR/IDA
This isn’t the first picture of Ceres by Dawn — not by a long-shot — but it sure will loom bigger than you see in the image at left, which was taken in 2010. Dawn hadn’t even arrived at Vesta at the time, the blog post points out, and the spacecraft was about 1,300 times further from Ceres then as it is now. Translating that into visual magnitude, the new pictures of Ceres will show an appearance about as bright as Venus, from Earth’s perspective.
In October, the Dawn blog said that more pictures of Ceres are planned on Jan. 13, when Ceres will appear 25 pixels across. This won’t be quite the best view ever — that was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which you can see below, — but just wait a couple of weeks. The mission planners say that by Jan. 26, the images will be slightly better. On Feb. 4, they will be twice as good and by Feb. 20, seven times as good.
As with the calibration photo taken today, these photos in 2015 will have a double purpose: optical navigation. It’s to help the spacecraft figure out where to go, because our pictures of Ceres are so fuzzy that mission planners will need more exact information as the mission proceeds.
You can read more information about the picture-taking, and Dawn’s planned approach to Ceres, in the Nov. 28 entry of the Dawn blog.
Pictures of the asteroid Ceres taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released in 2005. It shows the asteroid rotating over two hours and 20 minutes, which is about a quarter of a day on Ceres (nine hours). At the time, scientists said the bright spot is a mystery. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Parker (Southwest Research Institute), P. Thomas (Cornell University), and L. McFadden (University of Maryland, College Park)
Artist's conception of the Pluto system from the surface of one of its moons. Credit: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI)
Pluto is so far away from us and so tiny that it’s hard to glean even basic facts about it. What is its tenuous atmosphere made of? And how to observe it during NASA’s New Horizons very brief flyby next July? A recent Johns Hopkins blog post explains how a careful maneuver post-Pluto will let investigators use the Sun to examine the dwarf planet’s true nature.
Investigators will use an instrument called Alice, an ultraviolet spectrometer, to look at the atmosphere around Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. Alice is capable of examining the gases in the atmosphere using a large “airglow” aperture (4 by 4 centimeters) and also using the Sun for observation with a smaller, 1-mm solar occultation channel.
“Once New Horizons flies past Pluto, the trajectory will conveniently (meaning, carefully planned for many years) fly the spacecraft through Pluto’s shadow, creating an effect just like a solar eclipse here on Earth,” wrote Joel Parker, New Horizons co-investigator, in a blog post.
New Horizons spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA
“So we can (and will) just turn the spacecraft around and stare at the Sun, using Alice as it goes behind Pluto to measure how the Sun’s ultraviolet light changes as that light passes through deeper and deeper parts of Pluto’s atmosphere. This technique lets us measure the composition of Pluto’s atmosphere as a function of altitude.”
And guess where the technique was used not too long ago? Titan! That’s a moon of Saturn full of hydrocarbons and what could be a precursor chemistry to life. The moon is completely socked in with this orange haze that is intriguing. Scientists are still trying to figure out what it is made of — and also, to use our understanding of it to apply to planets outside our solar system.
When a huge exoplanet passes in front of its star, and it’s close enough to Earth, scientists are starting to learn how to ferret out information about its chemistry. This shows them what temperature the atmosphere is like and what it is made of, although it should be emphasized scientists are only starting on this work.
A composite image of Titan’s atmosphere, created using blue, green and red spectral filters to create an enhanced-color view. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The goal of performing these transit observations of Titan was to understand how haze on an exoplanet might blur the observations. From four passes with the Cassini spacecraft, the team (led by Tyler Robinson at NASA’s Ames Research Center) found that haze would make it difficult to get information from all but the upper atmosphere.
“An additional finding from the study is that Titan’s hazes more strongly affect shorter wavelengths, or bluer, colors of light,” NASA stated at the time. “Studies of exoplanet spectra have commonly assumed that hazes would affect all colors of light in similar ways. Studying sunsets through Titan’s hazes has revealed that this is not the case.”
The nature of Pluto will better come to light when New Horizons makes its pass by the planet in July 2015. Meanwhile, controllers are counting down the days until the spacecraft emerges from its last hibernation on Saturday (Dec. 6).
Orion atop Delta 4 Heavy Booster. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Video Caption: Animation details NASA’s Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission launching on Dec. 4. 2014. Credit: NASA
It’s not Science Fiction! It’s Not Star Trek!
No. It’s a really, really big NASA Mission! It’s Orion!
In fact, it’s the biggest and most important development in US Human Spaceflight since the end of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
Orion is launching soon on its first flight, the pathfinding Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission and sets NASA on the path to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.
Watch this cool NASA animation beautifully detailing every key step of Orion’s First Launch!
Orion is designed to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Even farther into deep space than NASA’s Apollo moon landing which ended more than four decades ago!
We are T-MINUS 4 Days and Counting to the inaugural blastoff of Orion as of today, Sunday, November 30, 2014.
To learn even more about the 8 major events and goals happening during Orion’s EFT-1 mission be sure to check out my recent story with NASA’s fabulous new set of infographics – here.
Every aspect of the final processing steps now in progress by engineers and technicians from NASA, rocket provider United Launch Alliance, and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin is proceeding smoothly and marching towards launch.
Orion’s move to Launch Complex-37. Credit: Mike Killian
Orion will lift off on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket on its inaugural test flight to space on the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission at 7:05 a.m. EST on December 4, 2014, from Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The two-orbit, four and a half hour Orion EFT-1 flight around Earth will lift the Orion spacecraft and its attached second stage to an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) – and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 years.
EFT-1 will test the rocket, second stage, jettison mechanisms as well as avionics, attitude control, computers and electronic systems inside the Orion spacecraft.
Then the spacecraft will carry out a high speed re-entry through the atmosphere at speeds approaching 20,000 mph and scorching temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit to test the heat shield, before splashing down for a parachute assisted landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Orion is NASA’s next generation human rated vehicle that will carry America’s astronauts beyond Earth on voyages venturing farther into deep space than ever before – beyond the Moon to Asteroids, Mars, and other destinations in our Solar System.
NASA TV will provide several hours of live coverage
Here’s how Orion EFT-1 Launch will look!
Delta 4 Heavy rocket and super secret US spy satellite roars off Pad 37 on June 29, 2012, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA’s Orion EFT-1 capsule will blastoff atop a similar Delta 4 Heavy Booster in December 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
Watch for Ken’s ongoing Orion coverage and he’ll be onsite at KSC in the days leading up to the historic launch on Dec. 4.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Launch – It’s going to be loud. It’s going to be bright. It’s going to be smoky. Engines are fired, the countdown ends and Orion lifts off into space atop the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Credit: NASA
………….
Learn more about Orion, SpaceX, Antares, NASA missions and more at Ken’s upcoming outreach events:
Dec 1-5: “Orion EFT-1, SpaceX CRS-5, Antares Orb-3 launch, Curiosity Explores Mars,” Kennedy Space Center Quality Inn, Titusville, FL, evenings
Dive teams attach tow lines to Orion test capsule during Aug. 15, 2013 recovery test at Norfolk Naval Base, VA. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
