The team at NASA, in an ever-growing state of curiosity and zealousness, is one step closer to sending humans to Mars. On Saturday, engineers at Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans welded together the first two segments of the Orion crew module that will piggyback atop NASA’s future (and most powerful) rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), as it travels deeper into the solar system.
NASA’S ORION AND SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM
According to The Space Reporter, the Orion capsule, designed to “take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before,” will be used in Exploration Mission-1, which is headed to the enigmatic “dark side of the moon.”
“Every day, teams around the country are moving at full speed to get ready for Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), when we’ll flight test Orion and SLS together in the proving ground of space, far away from the safety of Earth,” stated Bill Hill, the deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development at NASA. “We’re progressing toward eventually sending astronauts deep into space.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR NASA AND ORION
During the next coming months, Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the spacecraft, will continue to piece together parts of Orion’s primary structure as they arrive to Michoud. Its complete construction will require seven primary welds that will connect the capsule’s main aluminum pieces. By opting for fewer welds, Orion will be significantly lighter. However, this also makes the welding process more difficult to carryout.
To ensure the installation would run smoothly, engineers refined their techniques by welding together a full-scale version of the current design of the spacecraft:
“We used the pathfinder to make sure we weren’t being too ambitious with our design changes,” said Mike Hawes, the vice president of Lockheed Martin.“It allowed us to verify the process would work before we used it on actual flight hardware.”
Prior to the welding, each segment was thoroughly cleaned, coated with a protective chemical and then primed. Following its assembly, the structure will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where other elements of the spacecraft will be constructed before its launch.
SHIP US AND YOUR KIDS TO SPACE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdcU4nKKV2E
First Pieces of NASA"s Orion are Welded Together
No comments:
Post a Comment