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The bow bay cover is installed on the Artemis I spacecraft in the final assembly and system test (FAST) cell inside the high bay of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 23 November 2020.
It protects Orion’s top during the mission, and upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the launch mechanisms will push the front bay cover to a safe distance from the spacecraft, allowing the three main parachutes to deploy and slow Orion to a safe speed for the splashdown the Pacific Ocean.
The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will test the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft as an integrated system before manned flights to the Moon. As part of the Artemis program, NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface by 2024.
KSC-20201123-PH-CSH02_0026 Photo credit: NASA / Cory Huston Enlarged image
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