Wed, Feb 01, 2012
Unmanned Flight Will Have Apogee Far Higher Than ISS
Orbit
The first flight of the Orion crew capsule is being planned for
sometime in 2014, though a specific target date has not been
identified.
Artist's Rendering Orion Reentry
Lockheed Martin and NASA officials say the crew module will be
boosted into an orbit with an apogee of nearly 3,700 miles, which
will be the highest any U.S. human-rated spacecraft has flown since
the Apollo program. By comparison, the ISS orbits at an altitude
between 205 and 255 miles.
Program managers say that the high altitude flight will allow
them to perform a high-energy reentry into the atmosphere in order
to stress the heat shield on the spacecraft, according to a report
appearing in the Orlando Sentinal. The flight will also
test 10 critical systems, such as controlling software and
parachutes. NASA Orion program manager Mark Geyer told the paper
that the 2014 time frame gives NASA and its contractors time to
find and fix problems before a manned test.
The flight will also mean a boost in employment on Florida's
Space Coast, where some 6,000 people lost their jobs when the
shuttle was retired. Lockheed Martin said it could add as many as
400 workers on the program as the test approached.
And not to be discounted is morale at the space agency. While
any manned flight is still many years away, NASA sees the Orion
test flight as a way to let its workers know that they're still in
the business of putting people into space, and returning them
safely to the Earth.
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