14 DAY TRIAL // Engineers at the NASA Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Virginia, announce that a test article simulating the size and weight of the agency's new spacecraft, the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, was recently able to complete a final round of water impact assessments.
The tests took place as the 8.1-ton (18,000-pound) spacecraft was dropped inside the LRC Hydro Impact Basin. The purpose of these experiments was to see how the Orion would fare when landing in the ocean under various conditions.
Scientists varied velocities, parachute deployment times, entry angles, wave heights and wind speeds, in order to get the most realistic representation of what the actual capsule will be able to do.
Orion will take its maiden flight in 2014. Its purpose is to deliver NASA astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, and to the surface of Mars by the mid-2030s. It will be carried into space aboard the new Space Launch System, whose first flight is scheduled for 2017.