NASA’s Orion Spacecraft is on Schedule to Launch in December

NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers are currently working to have the Orion spacecraft ready for its first-ever launch this upcoming December. On Thursday they installed the largest heat shield ever constructed onto the spacecraft.

Future missions for the Orion spacecraft include trips to a nearby asteroid as part of NASA's Asteroid Initiative as well as future spaceflights to Mars, which are expected to take place in the 2030s. The Exploration Flight Test-1 is scheduled for December and it's expected to provide engineers with data about the heat shield's ability to protect crew members on future missions.

"It is extremely exciting to see the heat shield in place, ready to do its job," said Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, in this NASA news release. "The heat shield is such a critical piece, not just for this mission, but for our plans to send humans into deep space."

The spacecraft is built to take humans farther then they've ever been before, with the new features such as emergency abort capabilities, sustaining crew during deep space travel, and providing a safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The rocket that will launch Orion, the Space Launch System, is also a new project that NASA is undertaking, and it's expected to be the most powerful rocket in history.

The first mission that will involve the launch of both the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System is scheduled for 2017, when Orion will be sent around to the far side of the moon and then splash down into the Pacific Ocean during Exploration Mission 1. But the installation of the heat shield is the latest news in the development of Orion, and NASA is pleased with the success.

The heat shield is constructed out of Avcoat - a coating that burns away as it heats up to prevent the transfer of extreme temperatures to the crew module. But heat is not the only concern for the engineers. The Avcoat is covered with a silver reflective tape that protects the spacecraft from extreme cold temperatures of space as well. The engineers will have to wait until the Exploration Flight Test-1 and Exploration Mission 1 to know whether or not the heat shield and its features will be effective in protecting the spacecraft as well as the crew from space's extreme temperatures.

The results of the experiment will be a crucial step for NASA, especially since the National Research Council released a report on Wednesday that deemed NASA's strategy for Mars missions is both unsuitable and unsafe. If the Orion can deliver the desired outcomes, the National Research Council could end up eating their words.

You can read more about the Orion spacecraft on the NASA website.