Moonlight skating in Sweden. Credit and copyright: Göran Strand.
“Nights like these are almost to good to be true,” says astrophotographer Göran Strand.
Glide along with Strand and two friends who went ice skating recently on a frozen lake near Östersund, Sweden. “This night was really magic, no wind, lots of ice crystals in the air and an almost full Moon that shined upon us during our two hours out on the ice,” Stand said. “To the right of the Moon you can see the constellation of Orion and down left of the Moon you can see planet Jupiter shining brightly.”
RoboSimian and Surrogate are robots that were designed and built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: JPL-Caltech
Since they were first announced in 2012, NASA has been a major contender in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). This competition – which involves robots navigating obstacle courses using tools and vehicles – was first conceived by DARPA to see just how capable robots could be at handling disaster response.
The Finals for this challenge will be taking place on June 5th and 6th, 2015, at Fairplex in Pomona, California. And after making it this far with their RoboSimian design, NASA was faced with a difficult question. Should their robotic primate continue to represent them, or should that honor go to their recently unveiled Surrogate robot?
As the saying goes “you dance with the one who brung ya.” In short, NASA has decided to stick with RoboSimian as they advance into the final round of obstacles and tests in their bid to win the DRC and the $2 million prize.
Surrogate’s unveiling took place this past October 24th at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The appearance of this robot on stage, to the them song of 2001: A Space Odyssey, was held on the same day that Thomas Rosenbaum was inaugurated as the new president of the California Institute of Technology.
Robotics researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory stand with robots RoboSimian and Surrogate, both built at JPL. Credit: JPL-Caltech
In honor of the occasion, Surrogate (aka “Surge”) strutted its way across the stage to present a digital tablet to Rosenbaum, which he used to push a button that initiated commands for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity. Despite the festive nature of the occasion, this scene was quite calm compared to what the robot was designed for.
“Surge and its predecessor, RoboSimian, were designed to extend humanity’s reach, going into dangerous places such as a nuclear power plant during a disaster scenario such as we saw at Fukushima. They could take simple actions such as turning valves or flipping switches to stabilize the situation or mitigate further damage,” said Brett Kennedy, principal investigator for the robots at JPL.
RoboSimian was originally created for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, and during the trial round last December, the JPL team’s robot won a spot to compete in the finals, which will be held in Pomona, California, in June 2015.
With the support of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance, the Surrogate robot began construction in 2014. Its designers began by incorporating some of RoboSimian’s extra limbs, and then added a wheeled base, twisty spine, an upper torso, and a head for holding sensors.
Surrogate, nicknamed “Surge,” is a robot designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: JPL-Caltech
Additional components include a the hat-like appendage on top, which is in fact a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) device. This device spins and shoots out laser beams in a 360-degree field to map the surrounding environment in 3-D.
Choosing between them was a tough call, and took the better part of the last six months. On the one hand, Surrogate was designed to be more like a human. It has an upright spine, two arms and a head, standing about 1.4 meters (4.5 feet) tall and weighing about 91 kilograms (200 pounds). Its major strength is in how it handles objects, and its flexible spine allows for extra manipulation capabilities. But the robot moves on tracks, which doesn’t allow it to move over tall objects, such as flights of stairs, ladders, rocks, and rubble.
RoboSimian, by contrast, is more ape-like, moving around on four limbs. It is better suited to travel over complicated terrain and is an adept climber. In addition, Surrogate has only one set of “eyes” – two cameras that allow for stereo vision – mounted to its head, whereas RoboSimian has up to seven sets of eyes mounted all over its body.
The robots also run on almost identical computer code, and the software that plans their motion is very similar. As in a video game, each robot has an “inventory” of objects with which it can interact. Engineers have to program the robots to recognize these objects and perform pre-set actions on them, such as turning a valve or climbing over blocks.
RoboSimian is an ape-like robot that moves around on four limbs. It will be representing the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals in June, 2015. Credit: JPL-Caltech
In the end, they came to a decision. RoboSimian will represent the team in Pomona.
“It comes down to the fact that Surrogate is a better manipulation platform and faster on benign surfaces, but RoboSimian is an all-around solution, and we expect that the all-around solution is going to be more competitive in this case,” Kennedy said.
The RoboSimian team at JPL is collaborating with partners at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Caltech to get the robot to walk more quickly. JPL researchers also plan to put a LiDAR on top of RoboSimian in the future. These efforts seek to improve the robot in the long-run, but are also aimed at getting it ready to face the challenges of the DARPA Robot Challenge Finals.
Specifically, it will be faced with such tasks as driving a vehicle and getting out of it, negotiating debris blocking a doorway, cutting a hole in a wall, opening a valve, and crossing a field with cinderblocks or other debris. There will also be a surprise task.
Although RoboSimian is now the focus of Kennedy’s team, Surrogate won’t be forgotten.
“We’ll continue to use it as an example of how we can take RoboSimian limbs and reconfigure them into other platforms,” Kennedy said.
Superstrings may exist in 11 dimensions at once. Via National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli.
When someone mentions “different dimensions,” we tend to think of things like parallel universes – alternate realities that exist parallel to our own but where things work differently. However, the reality of dimensions and how they play a role in the ordering of our Universe is really quite different from this popular characterization.
To break it down, dimensions are simply the different facets of what we perceive to be reality. We are immediately aware of the three dimensions that surround us – those that define the length, width, and depth of all objects in our universes (the x, y, and z axes, respectively).
Beyond these three visible dimensions, scientists believe that there may be many more. In fact, the theoretical framework of Superstring Theory posits that the Universe exists in ten different dimensions. These different aspects govern the Universe, the fundamental forces of nature, and all the elementary particles contained within.
The first dimension, as already noted, is that which gives it length (aka. the x-axis). A good description of a one-dimensional object is a straight line, which exists only in terms of length and has no other discernible qualities. Add to that a second dimension, the y-axis (or height), and you get an object that becomes a 2-dimensional shape (like a square).
The third dimension involves depth (the z-axis) and gives all objects a sense of area and a cross-section. The perfect example of this is a cube, which exists in three dimensions and has a length, width, depth, and hence volume. Beyond these three dimensions reside the seven that are not immediately apparent to us but can still be perceived as having a direct effect on the Universe and reality as we know it.
The timeline of the Universe, beginning with the Big Bang. According to String Theory, this is just one of many possible worlds. Credit: NASA
Scientists believe that the fourth dimension is time, which governs the properties of all known matter at any given point. Along with the three other dimensions, knowing an object’s position in time is essential to plotting its position in the Universe. The other dimensions are where the deeper possibilities come into play, and explaining their interaction with the others is where things get particularly tricky for physicists.
According to Superstring Theory, the fifth and sixth dimensions are where the notion of possible worlds arises. If we could see on through to the fifth dimension, we would see a world slightly different from our own, giving us a means of measuring the similarity and differences between our world and other possible ones.
In the sixth, we would see a plane of possible worlds, where we could compare and position all the possible universes that start with the same initial conditions as this one (i.e., the Big Bang). In theory, if you could master the fifth and sixth dimensions, you could travel back in time or go to different futures.
In the seventh dimension, you have access to the possible worlds that start with different initial conditions. Whereas in the fifth and sixth, the initial conditions were the same, and subsequent actions were different, everything is different from the very beginning of time. The eighth dimension again gives us a plane of such possible universe histories. Each begins with different initial conditions and branches out infinitely (hence why they are called infinities).
In the ninth dimension, we can compare all the possible universe histories, starting with all the different possible laws of physics and initial conditions. In the tenth and final dimension, we arrive at the point where everything possible and imaginable is covered. Beyond this, nothing can be imagined by us lowly mortals, which makes it the natural limitation of what we can conceive in terms of dimensions.
The existence of extra dimensions is explained using the Calabi-Yau manifold, in which all the intrinsic properties of elementary particles are hidden. Credit: A Hanson.
The existence of these additional six dimensions, which we cannot perceive, is necessary for String Theory for there to be consistency in nature. The fact that we can perceive only four dimensions of space can be explained by one of two mechanisms: either the extra dimensions are compactified on a very small scale, or else our world may live on a 3-dimensional submanifold corresponding to a brane, on which all known particles besides gravity would be restricted (aka. brane theory).
If the extra dimensions are compactified, then the extra six dimensions must be in the form of a Calabi–Yau manifold (shown above). While imperceptible as far as our senses are concerned, they would have governed the formation of the Universe from the very beginning. Hence why scientists believe that by peering back through time and using telescopes to observe light from the early Universe (i.e., billions of years ago), they might be able to see how the existence of these additional dimensions could have influenced the evolution of the cosmos.
Much like other candidates for a grand unifying theory – aka the Theory of Everything (TOE) – the belief that the Universe is made up of ten dimensions (or more, depending on which model of string theory you use) is an attempt to reconcile the standard model of particle physics with the existence of gravity. In short, it is an attempt to explain how all known forces within our Universe interact and how other possible universes themselves might work.
There are also some other great resources online. There is a great video that explains the ten dimensions in detail. You can also look at the PBS website for the TV show Elegant Universe. It has a great page on the ten dimensions.
NASA’s Mars bound MAVEN spacecraft launches atop Atlas V booster at 1:28 p.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 18, 2013. Image taken from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
A United Launch Alliance Altas V 401 rocket like that shown here will launch the next Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo ship to the space station in place of the Antares rocket. NASA’s Mars-bound MAVEN spacecraft launches atop Atlas V booster at 1:28 p.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 18, 2013. Image taken from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
More photos added[/caption]
Following the catastrophic Oct. 28 failure of an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket on a critical resupply mission to the space station for NASA, the company is seeking to quickly make up the loss to NASA by announcing the selection of the venerable Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance to launch Orbital’s next Cygnus cargo ship to the orbital science lab.
Orbital and ULA signed a contract to launch at least one, and up to two, Cygnus cargo missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program.
The first Cygnus mission would liftoff sometime late in the fourth quarter of 2015 aboard an Atlas V 401 vehicle from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Given that ULA’s full launch manifest was fairly full for the next 18 months, Orbital is fortunate to have arranged one or two available launch slots so quickly in the wake of the Antares launch disaster.
“Orbital is pleased to partner with ULA for these important cargo missions to the International Space Station,” said Frank Culbertson, Orbital executive vice president and general manager of its Advanced Programs Group.
“ULA’s ability to integrate and launch missions on relatively short notice demonstrates ULA’s manifest flexibility and responsiveness to customer launch needs.”
Antares’ doomed descent to incendiary destruction after the first stage propulsion system of Orbital Sciences’ rocket exploded moments after blastoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, VA, on Oct. 28, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orbital also stated that there will be “no cost increase to the space agency” by utilizing the Atlas V as an interim launcher.
If necessary, a second Cygnus would be launched by the Atlas V in 2016.
The 401 version of the Atlas uses a 4 meter diameter payload fairing, no solid rocket boosters strapped on to the first stage, and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.
This Cygnus launched atop Antares on Jan. 9 and docked on Jan. 12 Cygnus pressurized cargo module – side view – during exclusive visit by Ken Kremer/Universe Today to observe prelaunch processing by Orbital Sciences at NASA Wallops, VA. ISS astronauts will open this hatch to unload 2780 pounds of cargo. Docking mechanism hooks and latches to ISS at left. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orbital had been evaluating at least three different potential launch providers.
Observers speculated that in addition to ULA, the other possibilities included a SpaceX Falcon 9 or a rocket from the European Space Agency at the Guiana Space Center.
“We could not be more honored that Orbital selected ULA to launch its Cygnus spacecraft,” said Jim Sponnick, vice president, Atlas and Delta Programs.
“This mission was awarded in a highly competitive environment, and we look forward to continuing ULA’s long history of providing reliable, cost-effective launch services for customers.”
The Orbital-3, or Orb-3, mission that ended in disaster on Oct. 28 was to be the third of eight cargo resupply missions to the ISS through 2016 under the NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract award valued at $1.9 Billion.
The highly anticipated launch of the Antares rocket on Oct 28 suddenly went awry when one of the Soviet-era first stage engines unexpectedly exploded and cascaded into a spectacular aerial fireball just above the launch pad at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the Orb-3 mission to the ISS.
Read my earlier eyewitness accounts at Universe Today.
First stage propulsion system at base of Orbital Sciences Antares rocket appears to explode moments after blastoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, VA, on Oct. 28, 2014, at 6:22 p.m. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orbital was awarded a $1.9 Billion contract with NASA under the CRS program to deliver 20,000 kilograms of research experiments, crew provisions, spare parts, and hardware for the eight ISS flights.
In choosing the Atlas V with a greater lift capacity compared to Antares, Orbital will also be able to significantly increase the cargo mass loaded inside the Cygnus by about 35%.
This may allow Orbital to meet its overall space station payload obligation to NASA in 7 total flights vs. the originally planned 8.
The venerable Atlas V rocket is one of the most reliable and well built rockets in the world.
The next Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo ship to the space station will launch inside a 4m diameter payload firing, as shown here, on a United Launch Alliance Altas V 401 rocket used for NASA’s MAVEN. NASA’s Mars-bound MAVEN spacecraft atop Atlas V booster rolls out to Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 16, 2013. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Indeed the Atlas V has been entrusted to launch many high value missions for NASA and the Defense Department – such as MAVEN, Curiosity, JUNO, TDRSS, and the X-37 B.
MAVEN launched on a similar 401 configuration being planned for Cygnus.
The two-stage Atlas rocket is also being man-rated right now to launch humans to low Earth orbit in the near future.
Orbital is still in the process of deciding on a new first stage propulsion system for Antares’ return to flight planned for perhaps sometime in 2016.
Watch here for Ken’s ongoing reporting about Antares and NASA Wallops.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Soviet era NK-33 engines refurbished as the AJ26 exactly like pictured here probably caused Antares’ rocket failure on Oct. 28, 2014. Orbital Sciences technicians at work on two AJ26 first stage engines at the base of an Antares rocket during exclusive visit by Ken Kremer/Universe Today at NASA Wallaps. These engines powered the successful Antares liftoff on Jan. 9, 2014 at NASA Wallops, Virginia bound for the ISS. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
A false-color image of part of Cerberus Fossae on Mars. The view shows two rifts intersecting with each other, with sand (in deep blue) and dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Western University Planetary Sciences Division
Here’s the awesome thing about space and social media: in some cases, you can often follow along with a mission almost as soon as the images come to Earth. A group of Canadians is taking that to the next level this month as they take control of the 211th imaging cycle of a powerful camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
While some images need to be kept back for science investigations, the team is sharing several pictures a day on Twitter and on Facebook portraying the views they saw coming back from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. The results are astounding, as you can see in the images below.
“It’s mind-blowing to realize that when the team, myself included, first look at the images, we are likely the first people on Earth to lay eyes upon a portion of the Martian surface that may have not been imaged before at such high resolution,” stated research lead Livio Tornabene, who is part of Western University’s center for planetary science and exploration.
The team will capture up to 150 images between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12, and already have released close to two dozen to the public. Some of the best are below.
.@HiRISE image ESP_039152_1450 Tongue-shaped feature on south mid-latitude crater; Mars sticking its tongue out at us pic.twitter.com/F5LeG5e03m
— Western Mars Imaging (@westernuMars) December 5, 2014
— Western Mars Imaging (@westernuMars) December 5, 2014
Beautiful two-toned ejecta impact crater on Mars! Another lovely image brought to you by @HiRISE#WesternU 🙂 pic.twitter.com/q0FY2r6q8Y — Western Mars Imaging (@westernuMars) December 8, 2014
— Western Mars Imaging (@westernuMars) December 5, 2014
.@HiRISE image ESP_039149_1475 Gully monitoring in crater; looking for various changes over time. #WesternU#LdnOntpic.twitter.com/0DiXo7xrbd — Western Mars Imaging (@westernuMars) December 5, 2014
A futuristic Mars lander portrayed in a December 2014 video from Boeing called "The Path To Mars." Credit: Boeing / YouTube (screenshot)
Can the just-flown Orion spacecraft truly get us to Mars? NASA has been portraying the mission as part of the roadmap to the Red Planet, but there are observers who say a human landing mission is an unrealistic goal given the budget just isn’t there right now in Congress.
That doesn’t stop Boeing from dreaming, though. In this new video, the prime contractor for the future Space Launch System rocket suggests that going to Mars will take six spacecraft elements. Two are in the works right now — Orion and SLS — while a Mars lander and other bits are just ideas right now, but shown in the video.
According to Boeing, the missing elements include a deep-space tug, a habitat, a lander and a rocket designed to get up out of the Mars gravity well. They also suggest it will take several SLS launches to assemble all the pieces to bring humans to the Red Planet.
“I think we’ll be able to colonize Mars someday,” said Mike Raftery, director of Boeing Space Exploration Systems, in the video. “It’ll take time. It may take hundreds of years. But that’s not unusual for humans. It’s really about establishing a human foothold on the planet. It’s a natural evolution of humanity to take this challenge on.”
That said, the video does hold to the old joke that a Mars landing is always 20 years in the future; the opening sequence suggests that the landing would take place in the 2030s and that those first astronauts are between the ages of 10 to 20 right now. What will it take to make the Mars mission possible? Let us know in the comments.
Edit, 3:39 p.m. EST: Thank you to a reader on Twitter, who pointed out this presentation by Boeing that explains the concepts in more detail.
A view the Cassini spacecraft took during its flyby of Jupiter's southern pole in 2000. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Gimme a rocketship – we want to see what those bands are made of! This is a strange view of Jupiter, a familiar gas giant that humanity has sent several spacecraft to. This particular view, taken in 2000 and highlighted on the European Space Agency website recently, shows the southern hemisphere of the mighty planet.
The underneath glimpse came from the Cassini spacecraft while it was en route to Saturn. Lucky for researchers, at the time the Galileo Jupiter spacecraft was still in operation. But now that machine is long gone, leaving us to pine for a mission to Jupiter until another spacecraft gets there in 2016.
That spacecraft is called Juno and is a NASA spacecraft the agency sent aloft in August 2011. And here’s the cool thing; once it gets there, Juno is supposed to give us some insights into how the Solar System formed by looking at this particular planet.
Juno will repeatedly dive between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming only 5,000 kilometers (about 3,000 miles) from the cloud tops at closest approach. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
“Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our Solar System during its formation. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter can also provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars,” NASA wrote on the spacecraft’s web page.
The spacecraft is supposed to look at the amount of water in Jupiter’s atmosphere (an ingredient of planet formation), its magnetic and gravitational fields and also its magnetic environment — including auroras.
Much further in the future (if the spacecraft development is approved all the way) will be a European mission called JUICE, for Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer.
Artist’s impression of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) near Jupiter and one of its moons, Europa. Credit: ESA/AOES
The mission will check out the planet and three huge moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, to get a better look at those surfaces. It is strongly believed that these moons could have global oceans that may be suitable for life.
Earlier this month, the European Space Agency approved the implementation phase for JUICE, which means that designers now have approval to come up with plans for the spacecraft. But it’s not going to launch until 2022 and get to Jupiter until 2030, if the schedule holds.
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
Have you ever wondered what 51 million horsepower sounds like from 3 miles away? This past Friday, a Delta IV Heavy launched Orion spacecraft on the EFT-1 Test flight. The rocket weighed 1.6 million pounds at liftoff, produced close to 2 million pounds of thrust and consumed propellants at a rate of about 3 tons per second. Videographers David Gonzales and Kyle Johnson shot this film using 2 video cameras and a dedicated stereo high quality recorder to capture the ascent and thunder for Universe Today.
As the Delta IV Heavy ascended, the hydrogen and oxygen fuel combined to form water vapor which condensed into a cloud that evolved and took shape after liftoff.
This global map of Dione, a moon of Saturn, shows dark red in the trailing hemisphere, which is due to radiation and charged particles from Saturn's intense magnetic environment. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
If you hang out in Saturn’s intense magnetic environment for a while, it’s going to leave a mark. That’s one conclusion from scientists who proudly released new maps yesterday (Dec. 9) of the planet’s icy moons, showing dark blotches on the surfaces of Dione, Rhea, and Tethys.
Cassini has been at Saturn for more than 10 years, and compared to the flyby Voyager mission has given us a greater understanding of what these moons contain. You can see the difference clearly in the maps below; look under the jump and swipe back and forth to see the difference.
So what do these maps yield? Radiation-burned hemispheres in Dione, Tethys, and Rhea. Icy deposits building up on Enceladus from eruptions, which you can see in yellow and magenta, as well as fractures in blue. Dust from Saturn’s E-ring covering several of the moons, except for Iapetus and Tethys.
“Tiger stripes” — sources of ice spewing — in this image of Saturn’s Enceladus taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2009. Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Could these be used by future explorers seeking life in some of these moons? In the meantime, enjoy the difference between Voyager’s view in the 1980s, and Cassini’s view for the past decade, in the comparison maps below.
A caution about the maps: they are a little more enhanced than human vision, showing some features in infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths. “Differences in color across the moons’ surfaces that are subtle in natural-color views become much easier to study in these enhanced colors,” NASA stated.
Orion crew module after splash down in the Pacific Ocean with the Crew Module Uprighting System bags deployed and the USS Anchorage in the background that concludes its first test flight on the EFT-1 mission on Dec. 5, 2014. Credit: U.S. Navy
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Following a picture perfect launch on Dec. 5, 2014, flawless test flight, and safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, NASA’s first Orion spacecraft has been recovered from the ocean and brought back onshore in California.
Near the conclusion of its two orbit, 4.5 hour maiden test flight on the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission, the capsule fired its thrusters and began the rapid fire 10 minute plummet back to Earth.
During the high speed re-entry through the atmosphere, Orion reached speeds approaching 20,000 mph (32,000 kph), or approximating 85% of the reentry velocity for astronauts returning from voyages to the Red Planet.
The capsule endured scorching temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a critical and successful test of the 16.5-foot-wide heat shield and thermal protection tiles.
The entire system of reentry hardware, commands, and parachutes performed flawlessly.
The Orion spacecraft is guided into the well deck of the USS Anchorage during recovery operations following splashdown. Credit: U.S. Navy
Finally, Orion descended on a trio of massive red and white main parachutes to achieve a statistical bulls-eye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles southwest of San Diego, at 11:29 a.m. EST that was within one mile of the touchdown spot predicted by mission controllers after returning from an altitude of over 3600 miles above Earth.
The main parachutes slowed Orion to about 17 mph (27 kph).
The Orion EFT-1 spacecraft was recovered by a combined team from NASA, the U.S. Navy, and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
Following a perfect launch on Dec. 5, 2014, and more than four hours in Earth’s orbit, NASA’s Orion spacecraft is seen from an unpiloted aircraft descending under three massive red and white main parachutes, and then shortly after its bullseye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles southwest of San Diego. Credit: NASA
The only minor glitch was the failure of one of the three crew module uprighting bags to inflate. Nevertheless the capsule was in an upright position in the ocean waters.
Navy teams in Zodiac boats with divers approached the Orion after it had cooled down, hooked a sea anchor and tether lines onto the outside and maneuvered it into the flooded well deck of the USS Anchorage.
Once safely inside, Orion was placed inside its recovery cradle for transport back to a pier at US Naval Base San Diego.
An MH-60 helicopter flies over the Orion as recovery teams move in to retrieve the spacecraft. Credit: U.S. Navy
The capsule will be hauled back to its launch site at the Kennedy Space Center, likely by Christmas, Larry Price, Lockheed Martin Deputy Orion Program Manager told me.
At KSC it will be refurbished and launched again on a high altitude abort test in 2018 to test the launch abort system.
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 Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
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
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
