CALIFORNIA: Most of us will never be astronauts — sorry to break it to you but we can at least pretend to be aboard the Orion capsule with this video (below the fold), courtesy of NASA. Orion’s camera captured 10 minutes of footage from the time it commenced blazing through Earth’s atmosphere until it deployed its parachutes to decelerate its descent into the ocean.
You’ll even optically discern the plasma (engendered by friction between the atmosphere and the heat shield) change colors as the capsule expedites and temperature increases. NASA launched a test flight of the Lockheed-made spacecraft in early December to test its components, especially its heat shield.
The agency needed to ascertain it can survive reentry afore it’s utilized for manned missions, since the farther a spacecraft goes; the more expeditious it hurtles through the atmosphere. Thus, Orion, which was always designated to be utilized for deep space exploration, will have to endure higher temperatures than a Soyuz spacecraft peregrinating home from the ISS.
