The first successful attempt to be in outer space has recently celebrated its 50th year and it has opened new doors for more space missions. However, NASA has another reason to celebrate yet another milestone. The Orion, a NASA space capsule, is now officially completed and that only means one thing -- more space explorations will be launched soon.
The capsule is now ready for testing and further preparations as it is to be launched in 2020 to move around the lunar orbit. Two years after, the space capsule will be housing astronauts to promote more research about the space.
The Vice President, Mike Pence, made the official announcement of the Orion from the NASA Headquarters in Florida on Saturday. On stage with him was Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot and Rick Armstrong, the son of Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 Commander.
"The hard work of the men and women of NASA is the reason why we are here to celebrate. The American industry is proud to announce that the Orion crew vehicle for the mission Artemis 1 mission is finished and ready for its historic flight," said Mike Pence.
Artemis 1 will launch the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket around the Moon's orbit to test the system. This is in collaboration with the launch of the Moon exploration where it promises to bring the first woman to the moon and the next man on the moon in the space of five years. This is also in collaboration with the project of the future space missions to the Red Planet.
The engineers have recently completed the building as well as the outfitting of the Orion crew sheep from the Kennedy Space Centre. The pressure vessel, which is also considered as the underlying structure of this crew module, was put together by the Michoud Assembly Facility of NASA in New Orleans and was only shipped to their Kennedy base. The teams had to integrate thousands of parts of the crew module and conduct tests to certify to ensure that systems are in place for the flight.
The testing of the capsule will be conducted at Plum Brook to ensure that the capsule will be able to withstand the environmental conditions in deep space. When all the testing in Ohio has been completed, the spacecraft will be returned to Kennedy headquarters of NASA for final inspection and processing.
