At 7:05 am EST (12:05 GMT) on December 5th, NASA successfully launched its new Orion spacecraft on a mission that it hopes will “foreshadow the first human expedition to Mars.”
Orion was launched in Cape Canaveral, Florida, carried into the skies on the Delta IV heavy rocket.
A little over 4 hours later, after orbiting Earth twice (and flying further and faster than any spacecraft designed for manned spaceflight since the Apollo moon program), Orion splashed down back to Earth in the Pacific, just off the coast of southwest California and the Baja Peninsula.
Mission control commentator, Rob Navias, called the journey “the most perfect flight you could ever imagine.”
TAI is proud to announce that our Flexible Graphite Fiber Thermal Straps play a critical role in the thermal management of Orion’s communications and Data Acquisition and Management systems, and we look forward to providing this essential flight hardware to the program for years to come.
To learn more about our Flexible Graphite and Copper Thermal Straps, and other programs TAI hardware is involved in, contact our Marketing and Sales Department.