After passing close to the Moon and venturing farther into space than any habitable spacecraft before it, NASA’s Orion capsule will crash into the Pacific this Sunday (11), on the final leg of its risky Artemis 1 mission.
The capsule will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 40,000 km/h, and will have to withstand a heat of 2,800°C, half the surface temperature of the Sun. The landing is scheduled for 17:39 (14:39 Brasilia time).
The success of this mission, lasting just over 25 days in total, is crucial for NASA, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in the Artemis return to the moon program. The goal is to prepare a future trip to Mars.
The first test flight of this spacecraft, without astronauts on board, has been a success. But the real challenge will be in the final minutes, when the mission must fulfill its main objective: testing Orion’s heat shield, the largest ever built (5 m in diameter).
“It’s a critical piece of safety, designed to protect the spacecraft and its passengers,” explained Mike Sarafin, Artemis 1 mission manager. “The heat shield needs to work.”
Watch the broadcast of the return of the Orion capsule below (with English narration):
A first test was carried out in 2014, but the capsule did not leave Earth’s orbit and therefore entered the atmosphere more slowly, at around 32,000 km/h.
A US Navy ship, the USS Portland, has positioned itself in the Pacific to retrieve the Orion capsule, in a move that NASA has been rehearsing for years. Helicopters and inflatable boats will also be used.
The spacecraft will be slowed first by Earth’s atmosphere and then by 11 parachutes, reaching a speed of around 30 km/h when it finally crashes into the Pacific waters.
NASA will let Orion float for two hours, much longer than it would if it had astronauts on board, to collect data.
“We’re going to see how heat is absorbed by the capsule and how that affects the temperature inside,” explained Jim Geffre, head of Orion at NASA.
Divers will then attach cables to Orion to place it on the USS Portland, an amphibious transport vessel whose tail will be partially submerged.
The water will be pumped out, allowing the capsule to slowly settle onto a platform. The operation should last between four and six hours from the moment of landing.
The USS Portland will head to San Diego, California, where the capsule will be unloaded days later.
When the mission is complete, the spacecraft will have traveled more than 2.2 million kilometers into space since liftoff on November 16 during the maiden flight of NASA’s new megarocket, the SLS.
Orion passed just about 130 kilometers from the surface of the Moon and ventured more than 430,000 km from Earth.
Retrieving the capsule will allow NASA to gather crucial data for future missions. This will provide information about the state of the spacecraft after the flight, but also about the accelerations and vibrations suffered on board and about the performance of a vest that a dummy wears inside the capsule to test the protection that a human would have against radiation during the flight. space travel.
It is expected that some capsule components will be reused in the Artemis 2 mission, which is already in advanced planning stages.
This second mission, scheduled for 2024, will take a crew to the Moon, albeit without landing.
NASA is expected to announce the names of the chosen astronauts very soon.
Artemis 3, officially scheduled for 2025, will land a spacecraft at the moon’s south pole for the first time, where there is water in the form of ice.
Only 12 men, all white, have walked on the lunar surface in the Apollo missions, the last one in 1972, 50 years ago.
The Artemis program plans to send a woman and a person of color to the Moon for the first time.
The aim is to establish a permanent presence on the Moon, with a base on its surface and a space station in orbit.
Learning to live on the Moon would allow testing all the technology needed for a multi-year trip to Mars, possibly in the late 2030s.
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