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hi welcome to the neutral buoyancy

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laboratory at johnson space center or

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really close to it where we are doing

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some work today with the orion program

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that's our new spaceship that's going to

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take humans into space next um and

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we're actually working on rescue and

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recovery operations this is tom walker

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who is the lead for what rescue and

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recovery for ryan he's gonna tell us a

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little bit about that thanks so much for

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joining us sure thanks thank you very

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much okay so rescue and recovery why do

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what do we need that for orion for orion

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um we're gonna do a mission in 2014

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called exploration flight test one where

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our capsule is going to land off the

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coast of uh baja out in the water

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so what we need to do is pick the

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capsule

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out of the water put it on a ship and

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bring it back to port

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okay and that sounds pretty

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straightforward but i guess that's the

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recovery operations yeah because that's

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an uncrewed flight when we have a crude

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mission in 2021 we'll also be looking at

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doing uh setting up for rescue

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operations so if there's ever a problem

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getting to orbit and we landed out in

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the atlantic ocean

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we'd send rescue forces out to get the

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crew out of the vehicle as well okay so

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right now we're getting ready for

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exploration flight test one that's

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coming up in a little over two little

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less than two years now that's right so

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you know it's two years away what is it

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is it hard why are you why are you

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starting this now

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the way we're going to do recovery on

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exploration flight test one is we're

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going to have a well-decked ship from

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the navy go out to collect this

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that ship goes out in the water

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it actually lowers a a hatch in the back

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and we pull the crew module into that

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hatch into a cradle kind of like a boat

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trailer that's right so what we're doing

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now is we're bringing the navy experts

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out and teaching them all the hazards of

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the capsule how to interface with the

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capsule so we can not only learn how to

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recover it teach them how to do it

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but also we're building all our

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equipment so we're testing out hardware

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and stuff to interface with the vehicle

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we need time to develop that okay what

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kind of things what kind of questions

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are you asking what do you have to

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consider

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ammonia on the vehicle that vents it

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landing so we have to teach them where

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that danger is and how to stay away from

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it there's several areas of the vehicle

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that are really really hot at landing so

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those are keep out zones that we don't

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want them

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getting around

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there's also to get the

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crew module into the vehicle there's

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attach points on the vehicle three of

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them so we're teaching them how to hook

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into that those attach points so we can

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pull the capsule into the vehicle okay

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so we're also developing what's the best

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hardware to do that

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and this training development that we're

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doing now is all set up for next summer

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we're going to go to norfolk we're going

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to get together with the ship's crew and

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a ship out in the heart in the port out

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there and we're going to take a capsule

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like we have back there out into the

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chesapeake bay and we're actually going

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to do a practice recovery of it okay so

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that's what all this today is leading

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towards this is almost the practice for

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the practice this is a practice in a

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nice calm environment before we go out

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and do it in a bay

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and then in january of

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2014 we're gonna go off san diego we're

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gonna take a capsule just like that

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we're gonna take it out into the ocean

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and do a practice recovery so we can do

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it in a real environment just like we'd

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see for uh exploration flight just one

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okay um so i guess

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orion's landing in water that's why

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we're doing all this and that saves us

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some weight right that's right we back

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in the design phase that saves us about

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1500 pounds of mass that's very

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important to get that off there because

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we need to be as light as possible since

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we're going to go all the way out to the

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moon and beyond okay and does it make it

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easier or harder to to recover it in in

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the water it's actually just a little

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bit harder to recover in the water on

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the land it's something you can just

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walk up to

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and it's you don't have to have like a

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ship out there and stuff so it is it is

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a little bit easier on land to recover

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it

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there's advantages to water

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most all the chemicals that we have on

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board they're water soluble so the water

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actually helps with the

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the chemicals we have onboard that okay

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that's interesting i guess we see we see

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landing land landings with the soyuz a

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lot so we're kind of used to that but of

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course we've seen water landings too

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that's how apollo landed and so we have

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experience there but and take it this is

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a little different than what we've done

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in the past yes this is this capsule

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here is a lot bigger than the soyuz it's

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a lot bigger than the apollo right so

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the landing systems were going to be

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really heavy to get it to land on land

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and since we always protect for aborts

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with the crew on board we're always

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going to have to land in the water so no

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matter what we're going to have to

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design a system that worked in the water

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okay that makes sense well thanks so

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much for talking with us and how's the

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testing going so far it's going very

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well we're learning a whole lot this

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week all right we'll be back

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at the end of january to go through some

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other techniques some contingency

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operations as well okay and we're going

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to talk with somebody else who's working

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on the test a little later in the hour