Land, Or Water?

We've been hearing for quite awhile about NASA's Orion space capsule, and how it will replace the retiring space shuttle fleet in the next decade. But despite all the work done to date, one major design issue has yet to be resolved...

Will Orion return to earth using the splashdown technique used by early US manned space capsules... or over land, as pioneered by the former Soviet Union?

One thing is for sure...Orion will use a parachute, and will not have wheeled landing gear. This means a land-based recovery would need to be on the money every time, or impose serious risks to both astronauts and residents on the ground. It would also require enormous airbags, which is 1,500 pounds NASA would prefer not to require in its weight budget.

"There are a couple of aspects that pop out at us," Jeff Hanley, Manager for the Constellation Program, told Universe Today. "One is the safety and the risks involved in landing. Looking at the landing itself, the event of actually touching down, water comes out to be preferable as less risk... [but] in looking at what it takes to get a pound of spacecraft to low lunar orbit in terms of the cost, every pound that you send toward the moon is precious.

"From an efficiency and performance point of view, carrying 1500 lbs of landing bags to the moon and back when we have a perfectly viable mode of landing in the water near a US coastal site didn’t seem like a good trade in performance," Hanley added. "We’ve tended toward updating our point of departure concept to now be a nominal US coastal water landing."

A splashdown in the ocean would make precision in hitting the target less critical, but it would also subject the craft to saltwater... which is problematic for a vehicle intended to be at least partially reuseable.

Hanley told The Orlando Sentinel costs for the two methods would be comparable, and that NASA engineers reach a decision as soon as sometime next year. The first mission of the Constellation program is set for 2015.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/