An Ikhana unmanned aerial vehicle from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California is flying over the Pacific Ocean near Orion’s landing zone to record the spacecraft as it returns from orbit. The aircraft is equipped with infrared and other cameras to see Orion as it comes through the atmosphere and opens its parachutes.
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#NASA_Orion – Thanks for putting the AWE back in AWEsome!
I have missed this since they retired the shuttles
I have missed this since we built and manufactured the Space Shuttle
And we need to add the Apollo 13 music to the video.
I do have a question….. one of the main reasons for this mission is to test the amounts of deadly radiation once they get out of the Earth’s Magnetic field. That is why they need to go 3,600 miles above Earth instead of 250 miles as where the ISS is.
Well, why are they so concerned now when we already had dozens of men go through it with the Apollo missions in the past? Did something change?
It verifies the engineering used to shield the capsule with real world measurements. Would you fly on an airliner the very first time it flew because other models have flown successfully before? It’s all part of the design and verification process. The 3600 miles was also to get the needed speed to test interplanetary orbital speeds, shuttles and Soyuz fly slower.