Florida Institute of Technology professor J. Travis Hunsucker rode his bike to the barrier island dunes in Melbourne Beach and watched as NASA’s mighty Artemis I lunar rocket blazed a fiery trail across the post-midnight sky last month, turning into a tiny dot above him. Atlantic Ocean.
now, Heassistant professor of marine engineering and marine science, gave a talk aboard the Navy’s amphibious transport ship USS Portland in San Diego. On Sunday, he will help predict and analyze wave dynamics to guide NASA officials as they pick up the rocket’s spinning Orion capsule after splashing into the Pacific Ocean.
“So wow. I saw this car drop from the horizon on our beach. We see these beautiful photos of the moon orbiting. And then, four weeks later, you’ll see it go into the well deck,” Hunsucker said, pointing to the lower level of the ship, which will be submerged to load the capsule aboard.
“I’ll be on the other side of the U.S. and I’ll take the same engineering article across the ocean,” he said.
More:Artemis I: NASA’s Orion breaks records halfway through deep space journey
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The 322-foot Artemis I rocket blasted off in November. From platform 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, 16 lifted off the uncrewed Orion capsule on an epic 1.3-million-mile trek that circled the moon twice.
At the end of its 25½-day mission, Artemis’ Orion capsule will accelerate from a dizzying 25,000 mph — about a dozen times faster than a rifle bullet — to 300 mph after entering Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule’s heat shield must reach a scorching 5,000 degrees, or twice the temperature of molten lava.
After deploying a series of parachutes, NASA engineers predict the 11-by-16½-foot capsule will accelerate to about 20 mph before sliding toward the ground and falling to the sea surface, 50 to 60 nautical miles from San Diego, in full view of the recovery ship’s crew. coast
After the splashdown, NASA’s Artemis I landing and recovery director Melissa Jones said, “We’re frantically trying to get to the capsule” to retrieve pieces of discarded equipment that may sink deep into the ocean. It includes a ring-shaped forward flap that protects the spacecraft’s parachutes and other soft objects during re-entry.
“NASA is all about data. And we also want to fly the crew on the next mission. So this is a major test flight for us to get that data back,” Jones said.
The approximately 95-person Orion landing and recovery team includes Navy amphibious specialists who operate inflatable boats; NASA engineers and technicians from KSC and Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas; Air Force Air Specialists; and Lockheed Martin Space Operations personnel. The nearby Naval Air Station North Island helicopter squadron will provide aerial surveillance.
Portland will approach the orbiting Orion and several will use sensors to conduct “sniff checks” for hydrazine or ammonia leaks from the capsule, Jones said. Navy personnel will then close the Orion’s maintenance lines and fill the ship’s well deck with about 6 feet of seawater, and a cable will pull the floating spacecraft through the ship’s lowered tailgate to a specially designed cradle.
Portland will then transport the capsule to the bridge at the San Diego Naval Base.
Jones said the main splash pad is in a Navy training area — a move designed to keep recreational boats out. In August 2020, a makeshift flotilla of personal craft assembled after the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavor with astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley made a splash landing in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola.
The Orion crew module is designed to carry four astronauts into deep space during future missions within a 330 cubic foot living space. Jones said on Sunday the recovery team would try to recover the capsule’s three main parachutes for scientific analysis.
Jones said the recovery team will have about six hours to collect samples and images and conduct assessments and tests before towing the uncrewed capsule to the well deck. It includes nearly 1½ hours of footage documenting the heat shield’s condition before it touched anything inside Portland.
Three mannequins equipped with sensors are on board Orion for testing purposes. Instead, Artemis II will carry four astronauts to the Moon.
Liliana Villarreal, who will lead NASA’s capsule recovery campaign for this mission, said Artemis II astronauts will maneuver through Orion’s hatch in open water before the crew module is inserted into the Navy ship, and the astronauts must report to the ship’s medical center. two hours.
“It’s completely different. We have to make sure a lot of equipment is turned off before we do that,” Villarreal said. “There are interfaces with the crew’s clothing that we need to make sure we disconnect in order for the crew to exit the vehicle safely.”
Jones: A NASA management career was in my blood
Jones was born and raised in Oak Hill, a small Volusia County town of about 2,000 residents off US 1 just north of KSC and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Because of his deep family ties to Cape, he suspects a NASA career is “in my blood.” As a child, he thought space travel was normal: “I thought it was normal to go out in the front yard and look into space.”
“My grandfather was a security guard at KSC, and my grandmother worked in a gift shop. My father was a manager in the Titan program. My mom was a quality inspector for NASA,” Jones said.
While studying at the University of Central Florida, Jones recalled getting a phone call in February 2003 from his mother, Sue Hutchinson, who was waiting for him to return to Cape Columbia at the 15,000-foot Shuttle Landing Facility.
“He called and woke me up and said, ‘Get up and turn on the news.’ And hung up the phone. And he was there the rest of the day,” Jones recalled.
Columbia tragically disintegrated over Texas while re-entering the atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.
In January 2004, Jones joined NASA as a contractor on the return mission, which resulted in Discovery’s successful launch in July 2005. Until 2007, he was the lead orbital project engineer for NASA’s Endeavour.
Jones is NASA’s first capsule recovery director based at KSC: his Apollo-era colleagues were based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
“I’m really the first person to have done this before – and we haven’t done it in over 50 years. It’s an honor to be chosen to do this,” Jones said.
“My family laid the foundation of this place for me and I continue this legacy. I hope my kids see that and they want to continue it,” he said.
Splashing air, waves are the main factors
Hunsucker spent the days leading up to Sunday’s surge working on wave forecasts along the coast of San Diego, where Pacific waves can occur in a wide geographic area stretching from the Gulf of Alaska to the Southern Hemisphere.
He has spent the past four years with Johnson Space Center’s meteorology team, specifically analyzing Orion-recovery wave forecast data from NASA’s recovery exercises using mock capsules. A critical component of his job: Position the portland to minimize waves on the ship’s well deck.
“You have this 700-foot-long ship that’s being affected by the waves. It starts moving around. You have a well deck inside that ship. And it has waves that are caused by the motion of the ship,” Hunsucker said.
“My task is to understand how the ocean waves affect the movement of the ship, how the movement of the ship affects the waves on the well deck, and how the waves in the well affect the crew module,” he said.
NASA’s Orion recovery team completed a three-day “final training” exercise at sea aboard the Portland ship last week using a mock-up capsule. Jones said Johnson Space Center staff will select the jump site Sunday based on flight rules that outline “sea state” requirements and “high winds” standards for weather and wave action to ensure proper parachute operation.
NASA Flight Director Judd Frieling said in a briefing Monday that Orion could alternately land southeast of the Catalina Islands near Los Angeles if conditions warrant. Or Orion could land “shortly” — about 1,200 nautical miles south of San Diego. He described this trio of breakout sites as a list of Plan A/Plan B/Plan C options.
Large red balloons attached to the capsule are prominent features of the crew module’s uprighting system amid rolling ocean waves, said Carla Rekucki, lead test director for NASA’s Exploration Earth Systems program.
Hunsucker, who works under contract with Jacobs Technology, said Portland’s direction will also depend on the shape and steepness of incoming waves. He liked to practice driving the car in a parking lot full of potholes.
“I think we’re all hoping for a nice calm, flat, calm day,” Hunsucker said.
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NASA’s Orion capsule is expected to splash down at 12:40 p.m. EST on Sunday, December 12. 11. Watch live on floridatoday.com starting at 11 a.m
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more stories, Click here.) at 321-242-3638 or contact Neale rnale@floridatoday.com🇧🇷 Twitter: @RickNeale1
