SANDUSKY, Ohio — Northwest Ohio is now connected to a project NASA believes will someday bring the world manned spaceflights to Mars.
A test version of future spacecraft Orion’s service module has been delivered to NASA Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, where it will undergo a series of vibration, acoustic, strength and temperature tests over the next several months.
NASA said the tests will “mimic the shaking and noise the service module will experience during its ascent into space.”
Pyrotechnics will be used to simulate the shock the device will encounter when it separates from the rocket and propels astronauts on their missions, the agency said.
Orion is envisioned as the centerpiece of a new era in space exploration. The upcoming spacecraft is expected to take humans into outer space for the first time in a generation. The goal is to someday send astronauts much deeper into the solar system than the moon, including Mars and an asteroid in lunar orbit.
Most of the rocket’s frame is being built at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans. Much of the work inside of it will be done later at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA’s Sandusky research facility will play a crucial role because Orion’s service module — built by the European Space Agency and its prime contractor, Airbus — will provide in-space propulsion, as well as electricity, air, and water for astronauts.
The outcome of tests there will determine whether the service module is strong enough to withstand the rigors of outer space and safe enough to be located just below the astronaut crew cabin.
The results will help NASA and the ESA collaborate on a final service module to go up in space.
Once that one’s ready, it will likely come through the Sandusky facility for additional verification, Mike Hawes, Orion program manager for NASA contractor Lockheed Martin, told The Blade. A news conference was streamed live via the Internet and in person before about 200 people from the United States and Europe, many of them journalists.
James Free, NASA Glenn Research Center director, said in his opening remarks that testing at the Sandusky facility “is essential to ensuring safety for the next generation of human space travel.”
Plum Brook was chosen because it has the largest and most sophisticated vacuum chamber in the world for testing rocket parts, Mr. Free said.
“Orion will be used to reach destinations throughout the solar system that no other spacecraft of the world can do,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said Monday’s event was about “witnessing history and building the future.”
The facility will be used to test anything from the service module’s ability to capture sunlight for solar energy to how well bolts can hold up under liftoff and from friction in outer space.
The service module will be subjected to acoustic tests that, at 163 decibels, produce sound waves strong enough to liquefy a human’s organs, Rick Sorge, NASA space power facility test manager, said during a post-event tour.
His tour co-leader, Nicole Smith, NASA’s project manager for Orion testing at Plum Brook, said the service module will be tested under temperatures as hot as 170 degrees and as cold as minus-250 degrees.
The chamber where the tests will occur is 122 feet high and 100 feet in diameter. NASA made it from pure aluminum in 1969. It took the aluminum equivalent of a million soda pop cans, Mr. Sorge and Ms. Smith said.
Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA headquarters, said the delivery of the ESA-built service module to NASA’s test facility in Sandusky “is a substantial milestone in the program.”
NASA looks forward to collaborating with Europeans on future manned space travel, he said. The first unmanned launch of an Orion spacecraft was a success last December, NASA said.
The next unmanned Orion flight, called Exploration Mission 1, or EM-1, is scheduled for the fall of 2018. That one is expected to be the first from NASA’s upcoming Space Launch System at the Kennedy Space Center.
“When we launch the world's most powerful rocket, we're going to be shaking. We need to make sure it can [withstand] that,” said Mark Kirasich, Orion program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
The Block News Alliance consists of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. Tom Henry is a reporter at The Blade.
First Published: December 2, 2015, 5:00 a.m.