{"id":416860,"date":"2017-12-11T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=056d1386c9991e24993f5d28c3ac7f72"},"modified":"2017-12-11T11:38:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T15:38:00","slug":"space-elves-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=416860","title":{"rendered":"Space elves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2017\/12\/space_elves\/17295457-1-eng-GB\/Space_elves_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nThe Christmas elves worked hard to have the chassis of the Orion service module ready before the end of the year. Engineers at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, have spent recent months assembling elements of the second European Service Module for NASA\u2019s Orion vehicle \u2013 which will carry up to four astronauts on a voyage beyond the Moon.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAs with building toys, the structure requires carefully piecing together panels, brackets and joints. But this is not toy: lives will depend on it and utmost accuracy is key in Orion\u2019s choreographed assembly across borders.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn Europe, the assembly started with the module\u2019s primary structure. The dark panels are lightweight composite material known as carbon-fibre reinforced-plastic. The honeycomb structure provides rigidity and will absorb the forces of launch.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nInside the four panels, two helium tanks will push propellant to Orion\u2019s engines. The large holes keep the weight down but also allow engineers to reach the mass of meticulously laid cables \u2013 more than 11 km in total.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe silver circles are mounting points for equipment and cables. Most of these will be installed in Bremen, Germany, at the Airbus integration hall where the complete service module is assembled.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMore on the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.esa.int\/orion\/\" >Orion blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2017\/12\/space_elves\/17295457-1-eng-GB\/Space_elves_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\"><\/p>\n<p>\nThe Christmas elves worked hard to have the chassis of the Orion service module ready before the end of the year. Engineers at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, have spent recent months assembling elements of the second European Service Module for NASA&rsquo;s Orion vehicle &ndash; which will carry up to four astronauts on a voyage beyond the Moon.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAs with building toys, the structure requires carefully piecing together panels, brackets and joints. But this is not toy: lives will depend on it and utmost accuracy is key in Orion&rsquo;s choreographed assembly across borders.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn Europe, the assembly started with the module&rsquo;s primary structure. The dark panels are lightweight composite material known as carbon-fibre reinforced-plastic. The honeycomb structure provides rigidity and will absorb the forces of launch.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nInside the four panels, two helium tanks will push propellant to Orion&rsquo;s engines. The large holes keep the weight down but also allow engineers to reach the mass of meticulously laid cables &ndash; more than 11 km in total.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe silver circles are mounting points for equipment and cables. Most of these will be installed in Bremen, Germany, at the Airbus integration hall where the complete service module is assembled.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMore on the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.esa.int\/orion\/\" target=\"_blank\">Orion blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=416860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416861,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416860\/revisions\/416861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=416860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=416860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=416860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}