Media representatives are invited to view a full-sized test version of the Orion crew module at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 13, at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The capsule recently arrived at Langley for testing that will examine how it performs under a variety of ocean landing conditions.
In the coming months, NASA researchers will conduct static and water impact loads evaluations on it at Langley’s Landing and Impact Research Facility. The tests will simulate water landing scenarios for different velocities, parachute deployments, wave heights and wind conditions the spacecraft may encounter when it lands in the Pacific Ocean.
To attend, reporters must contact Sasha Congiu at 757-272-9859 or sasha.r.congiu@nasa.gov by 3:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 12. NASA engineers will also be available for interviews.
Orion’s first trip to space will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft 3,600 miles above Earth before reentering the atmosphere at a speed of approximately 20,000 mph and temperatures of close to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Prior to its arrival at Langley, the Orion test capsule was used for pathfinding operations, including simulated manufacturing, assembling and stacking procedures at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Lockheed Martin, which built the Orion mockup, collaborated with NASA to complete a series of acoustic, modal and vibration tests on the test capsule that simulated launch and in-space conditions.
To learn more about Orion, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/orion
For information about NASA Langley, visit: www.nasa.gov/langley
