CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — 3… 2… 1… We have liftoff!
Just as the sun kissed the Florida coast Tuesday morning, NASA conducted its Orion Spacecraft Ascent-Abort 2 test launch in Cape Canaveral.
“A critical milestone for human missions to the moon, this test of the Orion spacecraft's Launch Abort System will show that it can carry a crew to safety in case of an emergency during launch,” NASA officials said prior to the 7 a.m. launch.
Orion’s program manager said Tuesday’s liftoff was “very smooth” and “magnificent.”
This launch has a Northeast Ohio connection, too, because testing for Orion has been done at NASA Glenn’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky. Using their Acoustic Test Facility, the Orion test capsule can be subjected to 155 decibels, which is like standing behind a jet engine in simulation of forces during takeoff.
Throughout the last few years a number of different parts of Orion have been tested at Plum Brook.
“There are a lot of capabilities that excited here that allows us to understand how this vehicle is going to perform in its flight environment,” Jon Olansen of the Orion Flight Test Management Office said last August.
The next test will be of the Orion spacecraft that will go into space during the Hermes 1 mission. The spacecraft is expected in Ohio in September and will spend two months inside NASA’s 120-foot high vacuum chamber. There the spacecraft is exposed to temperatures ranging from -250 degrees to 300 degrees.
The team at Plum Brook recently completed the cage that the Orion will be enclosed in for the tests.
Jeff Reidel contributed to this report.