NASA's Orion spacecraft will be launched into space in six months. In preparation of the scheduled launch, the team finished stacking its crew module, one of the three modules needed to prepare the craft for its trip to space.
Ground engineers at NASA finished completing and affixing Orion's crew module on top of the service on Monday. The staff working on it at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was also preparing to affix the launch abort system to ensure that all three modules would be in their correct configuration before the flight.
All the modules for the Orion spacecraft were at the Final Assembly and System Testing Cell (FAST) under the Operations and Checkout Facility.
"Now that we're getting so close to launch, the spacecraft completion work is visible every day," said Mark Geyer, NASA's Orion Program manager, in a press release. Geyer also explained that the tests performed on Orion would bring the agency closer to its research on how far they could send human missions into space, without jeopardizing the crew's safety.
Now that the crew module has been secured inside the spacecraft, the engineers plan to work on the power connections going through the crew module and the service module. Once all the electrical system for all the modules was completed, Orion would be subjected to various tests including avionic, radio frequency, and electrical tests.
Orion's launch will be an unmanned flight, sending the spacecraft 3,600 miles above the Earth. The whole mission was estimated to be completed in 4.5 hours. The spacecraft's main goal is to check on the systems required in all human missions carried out in space. After completing two orbits, Orion will re-enter the atmosphere, bursting at 20,000 miles per hour. A parachute system will then drop off the spacecraft for a splashdown somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
