NASA's New Video Shows What Orion Endured During Descent
NASA has released a new video showing an astronaut's view during spacecraft Orion's descent to Earth.
The camera on-board Orion captured the video from one of its windows as the spacecraft entered Earth's atmosphere at 20,000 mph. According to Tech Times, the video shows what an astronaut would have seen 10 minutes before the spacecraft touched down after braving nearly 4,000 degree Fahrenheit caused by atmospheric friction.
"We can't give you a ride inside Orion firsthand, but we can show what it looked like from the spacecraft thanks to cameras aboard the ship during the 4.5-hour flight test on Dec. 5. The last 10 minutes of Orion's flight test show the plunge through Earth's atmosphere, when searing plasma so hot it appears purple (upper left) surrounds Orion," NASA said in a blog where the video was posted.
Orion's two-orbit test flight saw it travel more than 3,000 miles before landing in the Pacific. NASA hopes to ready Orion for a manned trip into space by 2021. It plans to land man on Mars in 2030s.
"The flight itself was such a great success, but that's only the beginning of the story. Now we get to dig in and really find out if our design performed like we thought it would. This is why we flew the flight. We demonstrated on Dec. 5 that Orion is a very capable vehicle. Now we're going to keep testing and improving as we begin building the next Orion," Orion's Program Manager Mark Geyer had said in a news release.
