Here’s what will happen once NASA’s Orion falls on Sunday

Should all go as planned, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will take offh Down the coast of Baja, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 11 at 12:40 p.m. ET. As the unmanned capsule moves up and down in the open ocean, the crack team will spring into action and attempt a carefully designed recovery operation. Here’s how we expect it to unfold.

Sight of Orion floating in the Pacific OceanIt would certainly be a welcome sight ean Sunday, but it will also be a time for reflection. Starship He will have completed a wonderful journey, in which I flew on the moon at a distance of 81 miles (130 kilometers) and overwhelming It is approximately 43,000 miles (69,000 km) beyond the Moon. At its farthest distance, Orion was 268,554 miles (432,194 km) from Earth, setting a new record for passenger ratings. Space ship.

Equally remarkable, Orion will have survived a harrowing re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, after enduring temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it reached the atmosphere at 20,000 mph (322,000 km/h). We’ll have Orion Innovative heat shield And NASA Skip the re-entry procedure to thank, In the event that the spacecraft returns to Earth well. NASA’s SLS rocket Orion launched into space on November 16thand send it on a 25.5-day mission to the moon and back.

More on this story: The latest photos of the Artemis 1 moon from NASA are truly amazing

The moments after a crash landing will bring relief and introspection, but for NASA’s landing recovery team, it’s showtime. It’s a huge responsibility to recover Orion, and not only because NASA will want to study every nook and cranny of its returning spacecraft But also because future Artemis missions will include a living, breathing crew. A complementary mission in two years’ time will include Artemis 2 Four astronauts, they will no doubt want to get out of the capsule as quickly as possible after the splashdown.

The landing recovery team, headed by Kennedy Space Center’s Ground Exploration Systems, will have assistance from the US Department of Defense, including the Navy and Air Force. Technologists and engineers from Kennedy, Johnson Space Center and Lockheed Martin will also participate, according to NASA Fact statement.

Orion is expected to splash about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Guadalupe Island. The original landing site, which is located 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of San Diego, cannot be used because of forecast severe weather, Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin told reporters yesterday. The newly selected target area is 345 miles (556 km) from the original site and off the coast of Baja, California. Speaking at the same press conference, Judd Freleng, Artemis flight director, said the new landing area is “within our testing goals.”

The recovery team will kick offto work about three hours before start-up and collect as much data as possible about the conditions, Artemis 1 recovery manager Melissa Jones told reporters at a briefing Back in August. Weather balloons will be deployed 24 hours prior to Orion’s arrival. USS John B. Murthaa San Antonio-class amphibious transport ship, which will take the team to the designated landing area. This class of vessel features a well deck at the waterline, allowing watercraft—or in this case, spacecraft—to moor inside the vessel.

After the crash, a helicopter crew will check the capsule to ensure it is safe to recover. Once Jones gives the official “go ahead” to proceed, divers and other team members will approach the capsule in inflatable boats. Divers will swim under the capsule to assess the vehicle’s condition and take pictures.

One of the first tasks is for the divers to attach a stabilization collar, or “horse collar,” around Orion’s base. They will also install an inflatable platform that will act as a kind of front porch for future astronauts to use when they exit the vehicle. While this is happening, other team members will attempt to recover Orion’s trailing forward bay cover, dark chutes, and three main parachutes. The team will also measure Orion’s temperature to determine the rate at which it is cooling, according to Jones.

Under normal circumstances, the astronauts wouldn’t exit until the capsule was safely inside a Navy ship, but the recovery team has the option of extricating the crew while Orion is floating in open water (in the event of a medical emergency, for example). However, they would only be able to do that if Sea and weather conditions permit.

The team will then prepare Orion for its journey to the waiting dock ship. Divers will attach a winch line and a series of tilt lines to the capsule. The team will use these lines to pull Orion towards it The ship is lovingly placed inside a specialized compound known as the “cradle”. Final steps will include drying of the well surface and retrieval of the bay cover and parachutes.

The process, from spraying the water to placing it in the cradle, will take between four and five hours, according to Jones. She added that in the event of an emergency, the recovery team estimates that it can get an astronaut to the ship’s medical bay in about 80 to 90 minutes. “Artemis 1 will refine these estimates, and we believe we can improve and implement these procedures faster,” Jones said. The team has practiced all this before, but now it’s the real deal, despite not having any astronauts on board (nevertheless, three mannequins participated in the Artemis 1 mission, collecting data on g-forces and radiation exposure.).

USS John B. Murtha Orion will be transported to a dock at Naval Base San Diego, where it will be loaded onto a truck and transported back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The awnings and bay cover, if recovered, will be sent for drying and examination.

And that would be the brief for Artemis 1, the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to the lunar environment. fingers crossed, The recovery will go exactly as planned and we’ll do it again in 2024 – but with an actual crew on board.

more: Orion will “skip like a rock” through Earth’s atmosphere during the next return