2 hours and five minutes into flight, Orion is entering the lower Van Allen belt which contains intense levels of radiation. The cameras onboard Orion have been turned off to protect them. It will take 15 minutes to pass through this zone. The spacecraft will encounter it again on its way back to Earth in another hour-and-a-half.
“Everything going perfectly on the maiden flight of Orion,” reports NASA TV commentator Rob Navias.
Good job on launching Orion, I watched the anticipated launch yesterday in, well, disgust at the Delta IV Heavy Launch problems. I hope everything goes well in the Van Allen Radiation Belts and no problems are encountered in rentry.
Utterly bad decision to turn off the cameras. Have you all lived in a cave or something? This have given the NASA-never-went-to-the-moon community their final proof.
Besides that. The only thing the cameras would have suffered would be occasional flares, blinks or other disturbances when high velocity particles hit the CCD.
You do know that there are surveillance cameras almost inside of nuclear reactor cores?
There is much discussion concerning amount of heat generated by the FRICTION as the Orion re-enters the atmosphere. Surely the heat is generated by the PRESSURE created against the heat shield?