Mission to Mars: NASA spacecraft gets important paint job at Langley AFB

HAMPTON

Silver is out. Black and white is in.

A mock-up of a NASA crew module that will take humans into deep space and eventually to Mars finished getting a new paint job Friday at Langley Air Force Base that includes circles and squares on its bottom so scientists can determine which way it is rotating in flight. The black-and-white paint scheme on the module will help collect important data ahead of a key test that will determine if the Orion spacecraft's launch abort system works.

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The test, known as Ascent Abort-2, will take place at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April 2019. It's designed to show if the rocket-powered tower on top of the crew module can steer the capsule and astronauts inside it to safety in case something goes wrong with the space launch system after liftoff, according to NASA.

NASA wants to carry astronauts to an asteroid aboard Orion in the 2020s and to Mars in the 2030s. Orion consists of three main parts: the service module that fuels and propels the spacecraft, the crew module that serves as living space for up to six astronauts, and the Launch Abort System that will jettison away after Orion reaches orbit.

The crew module that will be used during the test was made at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton. NASA says it is a simplified representation designed to match the outer shape and approximate mass distribution of the Orion crew module that astronauts will fly in.

Langley Research Center is adjacent to Langley Air Force Base, and the crew module was brought there on Jan. 26 because NASA didn't have enough space at its facility, according to Langley officials. The base has offered to let NASA use space for the Orion project at no charge at various times for the past decade.

The crew module was painted by contractors in a corrosion booth at the military base where planes would normally be painted. The module was plain metal before it was brought to the Air Force base, which is home to F-22 Raptors.

Orion being transported — A new Orion capsule is being moved from the Flight Test Article Development and Intergration Facility, Building 1232 at NASA Langley, where it was constructed, to Langley Air force Base where it will be painted.
NASA | David C. Bowman

NASA said the idea behind the paint job was to give it specific flight-test markings on its sides and bottom that will allow it to collect trajectory data as well as the orientation of the spacecraft relative to the direction of travel. Four fixed cameras at about 90-degree intervals are placed around the launch pad to record the painted patterns on film during the first 700 feet of flight.

"The pattern on the bottom is what they're really going to be using," said Lisa Hawks, NASA Langley Research Center's operations lead for the Ascent Abort-2 test. "The bottom is the most useful because that's what your'e looking at."

The perspective of these film-recorded patterns is used in conjunction with gyroscope data to provide accurate tracking data, according to NASA.

Before that test occurs, the crew module first will go to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas later this month. There, staff will fully assemble and integrate the crew module and separation ring, including development of unique avionics, power, software and data collection subsystems and several elements of ground support equipment, according to NASA.

Using the Air Force facility isn't the first local military connection to the Orion spacecraft program. In 2013, the Navy tested flooding the well deck of the amphibious transport dock USS Arlington at Naval Station Norfolk to recover an Orion module.