Nasa has shipped the Orion capsule, a spacecraft designed to take humans to Mars, from its Michoud assembly facility in Louisiana to Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Super Guppy cargo plane.
Orion’s pressure vessel, the welding of which was completed last month, will be staying at the Kennedy Space Center until its first unmanned test flight aboard Nasa’s space launch system vehicle.
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Nasa said in a statement: "The pressure vessel will fly on the first integrated launch of Orion and Nasa’s powerful new rocket, the space launch system.
"The test flight, which will fly without crew, will demonstrate the agency’s new capability to launch future deep space missions, which include missions to an asteroid and Mars."
The space agency’s giant Super Guppy aircraft that transported the Orion capsule features a cargo compartment that is 25ft tall, 25ft wide and 111ft long and can carry more than 26t of cargo.
Nasa previously used the Super Guppy plane to move large cargos and ship parts and pieces required to build the International Space Station, reports The Verge.
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By GlobalDataIn order to accommodate cargos inside its belly, the Super Guppy aircraft can be separated into two parts.
The aircraft is equipped with a unique hinged nose that can open over an angle of 200° to allow large cargo pieces to be loaded and unloaded from the front. After loading cargos, the nose gets reconnected for departure.
In November, the Super Guppy aircraft transported Orion spacecraft service module stacking assembly from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center to the agency’s Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook station facility in Sandusky, Ohio.
Image: Nasa readies the Orion capsule aboard a Super Guppy cargo plane for shipping. Photo: courtesy of Nasa.
