Pool Tests Will Come Ahead Of Ocean Recovery Trials
Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Carderock Division
engineers, along with a NASA test and evaluation team are
conducting initial Post-Landing Orion Recovery Test (PORT)
operations, March 23-27. The team will test a full-scale model of
NASA's Orion space capsule at Carderock's pentagon-shaped test
pond.
The model, measuring 16.5 feet in diameter and weighing 18,000
pounds, was built by NSWC Carderock in its model fabrication
facility. The area is primarily used for Navy ship and submarine
model design, fabrication, mission test support, and specialized
manufacturing services using computer aided numerically controlled
machines, programming, stereolithography, manufacturing, wood and
composite material fabrication.
NSWC Carderock, a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command,
also uses its model fabrication facility to design ships and
systems that are both "state of the art" and easily upgradable. The
PORT objective is to determine what the environment will be like
for the astronaut and recovery crews at landing, and incorporate
those lessons into the spacecraft design.
The Carderock test pond provides a controlled environment for
NASA space crew recovery personnel and 920th Air Wing's Para Rescue
Divers for familiarization diving
before testing procedures in the uncontrolled waters of the
Atlantic Ocean during the week of April 6.
"Divers were in the water March 25, practicing attaching
flotation collars," said Richard Banko, Carderock lead engineer and
principle Navy-NASA test coordinator. "We're currently testing
opening and closing the hatch with the flotation collars in place
and then we're going to do night testing, and conduct these
evolutions all over again without natural lighting, using only the
diver's lighting."
After completing diver familiarization, the crew module will be
transported to the National Mall in Washington for display at the
National Air and Space Museum.
"The Carderock team has gone far above and beyond our
expectations in support of this project that I'm almost at a loss
for words of praise," Alan Rhodes, NASA's Constellation Program
Test and Verification office, said. "When you look at where we
started planning a year and a half ago, and look at the finished
crew model, and its water testing, it's truly amazing how well this
model was built, how well it fits within the tolerances we've asked
for it."
Carderock engineers and researchers will also participate in the
testing when the model is transported to sea and launched by NASA's
space shuttle solid rocket booster recovery ship. The team will
quantify the seakeeping characteristics of the mock-up.