Orion Arrives at Plum Brook for Environmental Testing
SANDUSKY, Ohio (NASA PR) — The Artemis I Orion spacecraft arrived at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio, on Tuesday, Nov. 26 for in-space environmental testing in preparation for Artemis I.
This four-month test campaign will subject the spacecraft, consisting of its crew module and European-built service module, to the vacuum, extreme temperatures and electromagnetic environment it will experience during the three-week journey around the Moon and back. The goal of testing is to confirm the spacecraft’s components and systems work properly under in-space conditions, while gathering data to ensure the spacecraft is fit for all subsequent Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.
“This is the final critical step before the spacecraft is ready to be joined with the Space Launch System rocket for this first test flight in 2020,” said Dr. Marla Pérez-Davis, acting director, NASA’s Glenn Research Center. “Our team at Plum Brook Station has been upgrading the Space Environments Complex to prepare for this test, and we are thrilled that it is here.”
The spacecraft flew into Mansfield Lahm Airport aboard the agency’s Super Guppy from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where engineers and technicians recently completed assembly and integration of the crew capsule and service module. Transportation of the spacecraft is an involved process, bringing together teams from Glenn, Kennedy, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Lockheed Martin, the Ohio Air National Guard, and the following local logistics companies: RPTS Express; Diamond Heavy Haul, Inc.; and Capital City Group, Inc.
“This is an exciting day for our state, as it continues Ohio’s long line of history in our nation’s space exploration pursuits,” said U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson. “From the Wright brothers to the first man on the Moon—Neil Armstrong—to the Orion spacecraft, Ohio leads the United States in the aerospace industry and will continue to do so in the future.”
After unloading Orion at the airport, the transportation team drove the spacecraft across Northeast Ohio’s new space corridor. NASA Glenn worked with the Ohio Department of Transportation and local utility companies to clear more than 700 overhead lines from the 41-mile stretch of rural highway between Mansfield and Plum Brook Station. The space corridor creates new opportunities for Ohio by enabling Plum Brook to conduct large-scale testing of agency and commercial spacecraft previously unachievable due to logistics challenges.
“This next-generation Orion spacecraft is being tested at NASA Plum Brook because of our region’s world-class workforce and unrivaled experience in space exploration,” said U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur. “NASA Plum Brook has a long and storied history at the center of America’s leadership in space exploration. Congratulations to the scientists, engineers and technicians for the hard work that it took get us to this point. Today’s arrival culminates years of planning, coordination and construction. This momentous occasion is an important step on the path to a future manned mission to the Moon.”
Artemis I is an uncrewed test flight around the Moon, the first in a series of progressively more complex missions that will land the first woman and next man on the lunar surface by 2024. NASA will then use what it learns on the Moon to prepare to send humans to Mars.
5 responses to “Orion Arrives at Plum Brook for Environmental Testing”
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I had never heard of gold as blocking radiation. In the article below it says in the cockpit of the Radar plane they could see sparks. Gold stopped it. I wonder if Orion uses it. Very good article. If not they ought to try it and see if it does any good. Plum Brook should be able to test.
their concerns about the
high number of prostate,
brain, blood and other
types of cancers affecting
their community, and
some have wondered
whether radars on military
aircraft might have been a
factor.
A McClatchy investiga-
tion last month found that
four of the commanding
officers at Naval Air
Weapons Station China
Lake died of cancer in
recent years. It also found
that the Air Force was
reporting a cluster of uro-
genital cancers among six
of its F-15E Strike Eagle
pilots and weapons sys-
tems officers between the
ages of 33 to 43 at Sey-
mour Johnson Air Force
Base in North Carolina,
and another among its Air
Force Special Operations
Command C-130 crews.
The E-2 Hawkeye pilots
who spoke to McClatchy
named other former pilots
or crew members who also
are facing cancer, or have
died from the disease, at
relatively young ages.
Ricardo, for example,
has been treated for doz-
ens of carcinomas since he
was 37. His commanding
officer from the 1991 Gulf
War, Capt. J.J. George,
died in 2011 at age 60
from lymphoma. In 2018,
Ricardo lost one of his
junior officers, E-2 Haw-
keye pilot Cmdr. John
Quinlan, who died three
days before his 50th birth-
day from metastatic mela-
noma.
“I don’t think the coat-
ing fixed the problem,”
Ricardo said.
The Navy has said a
deeper review is not war-
ranted because there is
not enough evidence of an
increase in cancers among
its aviation community,
nor evidence that the
radiofrequency (RF) radi-
ation emitted from aircraft
radars causes cancer.
When McClatchy asked
the Navy Bureau of Med-
icine and Surgery for co-
pies of any previous Navy
studies on radiation in the
cockpits of its jets, the
Navy said there were no
previous studies.
Ricardo said he hopes
that by speaking out, and
by other pilots speaking
out, the Navy will recon-
sider.
“I’d like to see them
make sure that the pilots
who fly their aircraft
aren’t exposed to hazard-
ous radiation and an early
death,” Ricardo said.
“That’s what I’d like to
see them do. I wish they
had done it sooner.”
Grumman Corporation,
which is now the Northrop
Grumman Corporation,
added the gold coating
onto the cockpit glass in
the 1980s after it received
data on cockpit radiofre-
quency radiation levels
from E-2 pilots who were
testing Hawkeye radar
upgrades for the company.
Those test documents,
made public for the first
time here, were obtained
by McClatchy and pub-
lished under the condition
that all names other than
the senior engineering test
pilot, Navy Cmdr. John
Hammerstrom, be redact-
ed.
“I think it [the test re-
sults] alarmed Grumman
and the Navy so much
that they put an adhesive
gold foil on the overhead
windows,” and later the
side windows, said retired
Navy Cmdr. Les Ryan, a
former Grumman E-2
Hawkeye chief test pilot.
But that first generation
of gold foil protection
“was kind of a stop-gap
measure. It would peel at
the corner, you could
scratch it,” Ryan said.
In the absence of a cur-
rent Navy-led study, form-
er Navy pilots are trying to
gather data themselves.
Retired Navy Cmdr. Mike
Crosby, a former F-14
radar intercept officer and
founder of Veterans Pros-
tate Cancer Awareness
Inc., and members of
several other aviator vet-
erans groups are launch-
ing a survey to collect
information from all cur-
rent or retired military
aviators who have been
diagnosed with any type
of cancer.
Hammerstrom, the
senior engineering test
pilot who conducted some
of the tests for Grumman,
had also experienced the
cockpit electrical arcs – by
holding lead pencils near
any metal in the cockpit
when the radar swept over
– while flying missions for
the Navy.
Based on that experi-
ence, when Grumman was
proposing a new stronger
radar in the early 1980s,
he and a few others asked,
“Can we look into this?
And they said, ‘No
problem,’ ” recounted
Hammerstrom, now re-
tired, in an interview with
McClatchy about those
1980s tests.
Hammerstrom said that
in 1982, he and other test
pilots at the Grumman
Flight Test Department
began taking hand-held
radiation meters into the
E-2’s cockpit to test for
radiation levels during the
radar’s use in flight.
Grumman’s engineers
taught Hammerstrom how
to operate the meters and
calculate the results, and
he reported the measure-
ments to them.
“Grumman was really
supportive,” Hammer-
strom said.
Northrop Grumman was
contacted about the cock-
pit radiation tests and
declined to comment.
National safety standards
in 1982 lowered the safe
level of human radiation
exposure specific to the
radiofrequency emitted
from the Hawkeye’s radar
to between 1.3 to 1.5 mw/
cm2, or milliwatts over
centimeters squared, which
the American National
Standards Institute report-
ed would be the maximum
safe amount of absorption
for the human body.
Some of the numbers
Hammerstrom recorded
during flight were higher.
In the first round of tests,
readings taken at the pilot
and co-pilot escape hatch
positions were 3.6 and 4.0
mw/cm2 when the radar
was in a “searchlight,” or
non-rotating position.
When the dome-shaped
antenna was rotating,
however, the levels re-
corded within known safe
limits.
The team kept testing
exposures in different
configurations, including
one where they covered
the cockpit with aluminum
foil shielding. When all
cockpit glass was covered
with foil, readings were
also consistently within
safe limits.
When the foil was re-
moved, they reached as
high as 10.8 mw/cm2
above the co-pilot’s escape
hatch. The highest expo-
sure recorded was in 1985,
when a reading of 30.5
mw/cm2 was registered
above the co-pilot’s escape
hatch.
In an ensuing Grumman
memo summarizing the
1982 test results, dated
Feb. 22, 1983, the compa-
ny reported that “an engi-
neering study is underway
to evaluate corrective
action, such as coatings or
screening materials.” The
memo also said, “A Navy
letter is being prepared to
document the problem
and request a meeting.”
The readings led to
further review by Grum-
man and the addition of
the gold foil to cockpits.
“I’m told that was one
of the reasons they ended
up putting gold in differ-
ent forms in the cockpit,”
Hammerstrom said.
At the time, gold was
also being studied at Tex-
as A&M University to
make better protective
suits for working with
radiation. “Gold, one of
the heaviest chemical
elements, is the basis of a
new lightweight plastic
foam under development
as a radiation shield,” a
1988 New York Times
article reported.
The Grumman test
readings are a rare insight
into cockpit radiation. Of
the aviation studies pub-
licly available that focus
on potential cancer expo-
sure, most focus on the
potential risk of exposure
to harmful ionizing UV
radiation experienced by
flying at higher altitudes
for prolonged hours, such
as commercial flights
across the Atlantic Ocean,
not the non-ionizing ra-
diofrequency radiation
produced by radars.
According to the World
Health Organization,
ionizing radiation contains
enough energy to cause
chromosomal changes,
which can lead to cancer.
Non-ionizing radiation is
defined as not containing
sufficient energy to cause
chromosomal changes.
However, in 2011 the
World Health Organiza-
tion’s International Agen-
cy for Research on Cancer
classified radiofrequency
radiation as a “possible”
carcinogen based on in-
creased rates of brain
cancer that may be associ-
ated with it.
Tara Copp: @taracopp
ALL metals stop radiation. So, does wood, etc. So does EVERYTHING.
It is about density. Liquid Water, between 0-1C, is fairly dense and does an OK job (useful when you have a lot of this). Gold is denser than Al so is better. Even better is LEAD.
Again, the denser and higher the atomic number, the better it does at stopping radiation.
Per centimeter, denser might be better, except for the secondaries from some radiation types. Per kilogram, water gives more protection especially if secondaries are considered. Hydrogen would be better yet kilogram for kilogram, but it has some seriously nasty handling problems.
Assuming there is actually a cancer problem associated with airborne radar, the obvious solution is to remove pilots from military aircraft – something that needs doing for many other good reasons anyway.
That Guppy is a wow airplane. To me my little RC airplanes are wow also. I tried to renew my Drone license but each one of my 20 or so planes has to get a separate #. Just like the Guppy. Use to have 1 # to put on any of my planes. I use to admire the FAA. But these people are stupid. They say they are busy. I bet. Tried to st up account. Waiting for E-mail. Might take awhile. Looks like I might have to take a test.This is what I understand so far. I guess no flying.
Wrong. I got my FAA Drone license. It says the # is good for all airplanes. They said drone. They should say drone or drones. 1 place says I have to take a test another says in the future. More research.