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hi everybody josh byerly here inside

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mission control houston i'm joined by

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rose flores who is the orion crew and

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service module chief engineer let's talk

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about orion for a little bit we've got

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eft one which is exploration flight test

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number one coming up next year in 2014.

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a big day right now because the heat

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shield just arrived at the kennedy space

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center last night and is being unpacked

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today right it is it certainly is um it

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came in from boston

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and flew on the guppy and landed uh

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yesterday evening so how exciting is it

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to actually see real hard we're seeing

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it getting packed right here i guess

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before that's a big box that is a big

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heat shield talk about the size of it a

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little bit it is a very large heat

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shield you know we've spent a lot of

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time developing it and testing it and

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transporting it um

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really the guppy kind of made sense

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because it's as large as it is let's

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talk about the you know we talk about

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it's the biggest

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now why is it well first of all why does

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it have to be so big and second of all

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why do we have to do so much testing

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we're seeing the

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you know the actual engineering process

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of building it here now but you know

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people look back and go okay you did

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heat shields back in apollo you know why

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does it take so much to build a new one

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like talk about the technology that goes

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into it well so

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for

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is a lot larger than our apollo capsule

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so that drives the size of the heat

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shield um for eft one specifically this

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particular heat shield is designed for

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the mission that we're doing

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so for later missions it'll you know the

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size of the heat shield will change at

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least the out the ablative surface will

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well

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but but the technology itself we

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actually ended up using the same

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manufacturer for the av coat material as

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we did for the apollo um for the apollo

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vehicle so is it closer to the apollo

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kind of without getting too technical

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sort of apollo composition versus what

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the space shuttle you know the spatial

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had those famous tiles on the bottom so

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it's more it is it is more apollo like

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um the structure itself yes it's

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ablative so the the structure itself um

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the

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with a composite laminate over it and

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then we've got the uh honeycomb that you

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can kind of see a little bit in the

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in the video that you're playing right

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now

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you see a little diamond honeycomb and

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we actually place the

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the av coat inside that honeycomb

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surface so that is essentially what

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burns off as we re-enter whereas the

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structure itself it's titanium it's a

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titanium skeleton with a composite

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laminate structure over it

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and then we've got the honeycomb and uh

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filled in with the ablative material so

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let's talk about eft one the purpose is

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to basically send this out several

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thousand miles out of space

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and then bring it back in at a speed and

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velocity that sort of mimics what you

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would see at either a lunar return or

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one from deep space right there's

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there's sort of the mock-up of whatever

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right so it's a it's a high altitude um

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re-entry profile that we're running so

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it's a high energy re-entry profile and

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essentially we're trying to get at some

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of the heat

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rates and heat loads that we would have

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for a for a high energy entry because it

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is different coming back

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right it's a it's a different approach

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and what we're expecting to see on this

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flight is you know try to capture data

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that's going to help us evaluate and

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design

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the next heat shield that we use for

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each for each additional mission so it's

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really gathering additional data that's

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going to help us

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better design the next version of this

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heat shield talk about your personal

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experience i mean you know you worked on

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shuttle for a while and then and then

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you're doing this you know how different

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is it to work on a brand new program

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that you know we've been talking about

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orion for a while you know for a number

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of years it was you know part of

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constellation now it's part of now we

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call it the multi-purpose crew module um

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you know is it awesome to finally see

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this stuff becoming real that you know

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real pieces of hardware are being built

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and down there at the kennedy space

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center and we're in almost a year or

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less than a year out from actually

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flying now it is it's um it's completely

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different actually because i was not

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around when we did the dvt of the space

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shuttle the actual design yeah so i came

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on board for i think it was sts-26 was

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my first shuttle mission so coming into

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orion as we're designing the vehicle

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and then

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seeing it go from paper to actual

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development units on into building the

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actual flight structure

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you know it's it's a very rewarding

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activity to be able to participate in

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that was kind of my reaction to one of

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our you know we've seen so many mock-ups

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here at jsc and some of the other places

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and the first time i saw a piece of real

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hardware of orion back when i was

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working on that and you know that

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particular program it was like this is

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real i mean this is real stuff that's

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actually going to fly in space you kind

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of get that sort of geeky cool vibe back

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you know whenever you see it for the

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first time you know in orion it has so

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many it's so compact whereas the shuttle

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was as large as it was you've got all

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these mechanisms and structural pieces

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but it's very large

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whereas orion is very compact so you've

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got

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numerous mechanisms and subsystems in a

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very small area even though it's a large

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vehicle yeah crew module so so does it

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seem real now that the flight's about a

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year about it does seem real it does

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seem real to see it coming together out

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in the o and c and and each piece each

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thruster that gets installed each

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parachute gets installed and now with

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the heat shield coming in that was it

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that's a major major milestone for us to

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have the heat shield delivered to the

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onc

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and get that ready to be attached to our

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a crew module primary structure well

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last question you know what's next now

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that the heat shield's down there at the

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kennedy space center now that it's going

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to be unloaded this morning what's the

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next step so the next step is heat

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shield will come in they'll start

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installing some of the additional

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instrumentation that we need

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from an orion perspective itself

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um we'll be doing some static loads

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testing on our service module we'll

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continue to install our parachutes um

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continue and install all the components

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that we've got on the vehicle okay

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rose flores thank you very much for

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joining us we look forward and it's

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going to be a cool flight next year i

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don't know when we take a look at this

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eft one it's gonna be it's gonna be

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pretty dramatic if you wanna follow

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along with the development of orion or

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take a look at what's ahead for eft one

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just log on to nasa.gov

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orion you can see all the different