EFT-1, THE FIRST FLIGHT TEST OF ORION IS LAUNCHED

Today, The Grandma has received the visit of a closer friend, Joseph de Ca'th Lon.

 

Joseph loves Atronomy and Science, and they have been talked about Exploration Flight Test-1, the first test flight of the crew module portion of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, that was launched on a day like today in 2014.

Exploration Flight Test-1 or EFT-1 (previously known as Orion Flight Test 1 or OFT-1) was the first test flight of the crew module portion of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Without a crew, it was launched on December 5, 2014, at 12:05 UTC (7:05 am EST), by a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The mission was a four-hour, two-orbit test of the Orion crew module featuring a high apogee on the second orbit and concluding with a high-energy reentry at around 8.9 kilometers per second.

This mission design corresponds to the Apollo 2/3 missions of 1966, which validated the Apollo flight control system and heat shield at re-entry conditions planned for the return from lunar missions.

More information: NASA

NASA heavily promoted the mission, collaborating with Sesame Street and its characters to educate children about the flight test and the Orion spacecraft.

The flight was intended to test various Orion systems, including separation events, avionics, heat shielding, parachutes, and recovery operations prior to its flight aboard the Space Launch System on the Artemis 1 mission. Artemis 1 launched on November 16, 2022, more than seven years after EFT-1.

EFT-1 Orion was built by Lockheed Martin. On June 22, 2012, the final welds of the EFT-1 Orion were completed at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was then transported to Kennedy Space Center's Operations and Checkout Building, where the remainder of the spacecraft was completed. The Delta IV rocket was put in a vertical position on October 1, 2014, and Orion was mated with the vehicle on November 11.

The four-and-a-half-hour flight took the Orion spacecraft on two orbits of Earth. Peak altitude was approximately 5,800 kilometres. The high altitude allowed the spacecraft to reach reentry speeds of up to 8.9 km/s, which exposed the heat shield to temperatures up to around 2,200°C.

During the flight, the crew module, a structural representation of the service module, a partial launch abort system containing only the jettison motor, and Orion-to-stage adapter were evaluated.

The spacecraft remained attached to the dummy service module on the Delta IV's upper stage until re-entry began and relied on internal batteries for power rather than photovoltaic arrays, which were not contained in the structural representation. Data gathered from the test flight were analyzed by the critical design review (CDR) in April 2015.

More information: University of Texas

 Fix your little problem and light this candle.

Alan Shepard