NASA scientists have gone backwards to progress, finding an old Apollo spacecraft heat shield hidden away in Smithsonian Institution archives that can yield secrets for designing the next-generation Orion space capsule.
NASA scientists developing the next generation of exploration vehicles and heat shields for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle uncrated the heat shields used on the Apollo missions some 35 years ago.
These shields now are being analyzed to help with the development and engineering process.
Teams of NASA scientists and engineers working on the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Thermal Protection System Advanced Development Project went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Garber Facility in Suitland, Md., July 31 and Aug. 1.
The Garber Facility curators and conservators collect, preserve and restore all things air and space. This includes airplanes, spacecraft, and spacesuits.
The Orion teams included members from both Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.
The Orion team was interested in the archived heat shield material because it included an Apollo heat shield that flew into Low Earth Orbit and returned to Earth on August 26, 1966.
Orion will be capable of carrying crew and cargo to the space station. It will be able to rendezvous with a lunar landing module and an Earth departure stage in low-Earth orbit to carry crews to the moon and, one day, to Mars-bound vehicles assembled in low-Earth orbit.
Orion will be the Earth entry vehicle for lunar and Mars returns. Orion’s design will borrow its shape from the capsules of the past, but takes advantage of 21st century technology in computers, electronics, life support, propulsion and heat protection systems.
Making its first flights early in the next decade, Orion is part of the Constellation Program to send human explorers back to the moon, and then onward to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.