Orion test flight to carry items from Sally Ride, America's first woman to soar into space in 1983

By: InnovatioNews Thursday December 4, 2014 Tags: NASA, Sally Ride, Tam O'Shaughnessy



 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The maiden test flight of the Orion spacecraft, set for today if conditions are favorable, will carry items from America's first woman in space.

The Orion will carry both the STS-7 crew patch worn by Dr. Sally Ride when she became the first American woman to fly in space and an excerpt from The Mystery of Mars, a children's book by Ride and Dr. Tam O'Shaughnessy.

"When Sally became the first American woman to soar into space, she captured the nation's imagination as a symbol of the ability of women to break barriers," said O'Shaughnessy.

"But Sally's historic flight represented just one aspect of a remarkable life. She was also a physicist, a science writer and an inspirational advocate for science literacy.


"It's only fitting that NASA's Orion spacecraft, designed to carry humans to deep space and eventually to Mars, carry her STS-7 crew patch and an excerpt from The Mystery of Mars on its maiden flight."

Ride was also the youngest American to fly in space in 1983 at the age of 32. She died in 2012 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61.

Orion's first voyage will be a two-orbit, four-hour flight that will test many of the systems most critical to safety, including launch and re-entry systems such as avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the spacecraft's heat shield.

UPDATE: The Orion successfully launched on Dec. 5 and splashed down as planned in the Pacific Ocean after passing all of its tests during two Earth orbits.

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