A prototype
of NASA's new Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts to back to moon made
a pit stop Thursday at the agency's Florida spaceport as engineers prepare for
its first ocean water test.
The Orion
Crew Exploration Vehicle prototype is a seaworthy mockup of NASA's space
shuttle successor, a capsule-based spacecraft slated to begin ferrying
astronauts to the International Space Station by 2015, and
then to moon by 2020.
The craft
made its way to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., from the Naval
Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda, Md., where engineers and Navy divers began
water recovery tests to understand how the 18,000-pound (8,164-kg) capsule
performs after splashdown. The initial tests were
performed in pool, but NASA is planning a second round of tests off the
coast of Florida to see how Orion ships behave in open water.
"The goal
of the operation, dubbed the Post-landing Orion Recovery Test, or PORT, is to
determine what kind of motion astronauts can expect after landing, as well as
outside conditions for recovery teams," NASA officials said.
NASA's
three aging space shuttles are due to retire at the end of 2010. The Orion
spacecraft are designed to launch atop the agency's new Ares I
rocket to ferry six astronauts to the space station or a four-person crew
to the moon and back. The spacecraft and rocket, as well as the planned Altair
lunar lander and heavy-lift Ares V booster, make up NASA's Constellation
program.
After
leaving Maryland, the
mock Orion capsule stopped at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to be
displayed before arriving at Kennedy Space Center, where it can be seen at the
spaceport's Visitor's Complex until Friday.
The open
water recovery test is due to begin on April 7.
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