2023-07-08 17:14:23
NASA is making progress in its preparations for the Artemis 2 mission, which will send astronauts on a mission around the Moon. Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida attached the heat shield to Orion’s Artemis 2 spacecraft. Orion and its crew of four are scheduled to launch aboard a NASA Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on Artemis 2 in late 2024, a mission that will take them deep into lunar space and far from any humans. In November 2022, the unmanned Orion Artemis 1 capsule is launched, a 25-day journey to lunar orbit and back. Artemis 2 will use a free-return trajectory profile that ignores the lunar orbital injection burn and puts the spacecraft on a return trajectory to Earth. So, the Artemis 2 crew will fly around the Moon without entering lunar orbit. Once Orion completes its trajectory to the Moon, the Artemis 2 crew will be on their way to our big blue marble, with nothing but Earth’s atmosphere between them and a slow descent from a safe landing in the ocean, where The spacecraft and its crew also protects Orion. A ground penetrator, its heat shield measures 16.5 feet (5 m) in diameter and covers the entire floor of the ship. After returning from the moon, Orion will hit more than 25,000 mph (40,230 km/h). The temperature outside the capsule would reach 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Orion absorbs most of this energy. The heat shield allows the interior to remain at a comfortable temperature while the astronauts return to Earth.
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