WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th April, 2021) The Orion spaceship, designed for a 2024 human mission to the Moon, splashed down in a swimming-pool like structure to measure the impact of an ocean landing in a test televised by NASA on Tuesday.
"The water impact tests are looking at dropping the crew module in a variety of conditions, looking at how the structure responds to that water landing, which is a pretty significant event," Orion Project Manager Debbie Korth said while moderating the test.
Tuesday's seven-foot drop allowed the capsule to accelerate to about 10 miles per hour before the splash, after which the cone shaped craft bobbed in the water, providing data from 500 sensors.
NASA began a series of drop tests in late march to prepared for the first crewed flight of the Orion scheduled for 2023.
The four-person capsule is designed to carry humans in orbit around the moon in 2024, from which at least two astronauts will use a lander to descend to the lunar surface for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972, NASA said.
