More than 15 years ago that Usain Bolt became the fastest man in the world, completing a 100 -meter race in 9.58 seconds. The sprinter reached a maximum speed of 44 km/h using his own body. If we talk about humans in a means of transport, the record is much older. And we do not refer to the pilots of the Bugatti Veyron or the Lockheed SR-71, but to the astronauts of the Apollo 10 mission.
A record recorded in stone. On May 26, 1969, when they returned to Earth from the lunar orbit, astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan beat a record that is still in force.
The ship in which they were traveling, the Charlie Brown command module, rented in the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 39,937.7 kilometers per hour, the equivalent of traveling the distance between Madrid and Barcelona in less than a minute. For 56 years, no one has travel so fast again.
The rehearsal of the first moon landing. To understand Apollo 10, you have to remember its context. The flight was a general trial of the historic Apollo Mission 11. They approached only 15 kilometers from the lunar surface, tested all the systems of the descent module and, most importantly, they safely undertook the return trip.
The reason for its incredible speed was not a higher motor power, but a matter of trajectory. The way back to Earth was designed to be especially short, about 42 hours instead of the usual 56.
This more direct fall towards our planet, accelerated by the earth’s gravity, catapulted the capsule and its crew at a speed never seen during the reentry phase, which Eugene Cernan described how to be in “a ball of white and violet flames.”
It has never been overcome. Since then, no manned mission has had the need or the ability to reach such a high speed. The era of the space ferry and the missions to the International Space Station were developed in the low terrestrial orbit, with much more modest reentry speeds, around 28,000 km/h.
The Apollo 10 record has remained intact, simply, because we have not returned to the moon. But this record, a relic of the golden age of space exploration, is about to fall.
The heirs of the record. The Artemis program, which takes her name from Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, is NASA’s response to that long absence. His first manned mission, Artemis II, is scheduled for early 2026, and the Orion ship in which they will travel around the Moon, will mark a new speed record.
If everything goes well, Astronauts Jeremy Hansen (from the Canadian Space Agency), Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Hammock Koch (from NASA) are expected to begin their atmospheric resentment to 40,234 kilometers per hour, a figure that would exceed a small margin the Apollo 10 mark.
All eyes put on the shield. To achieve a reentry at this record speed and resist plasma and temperatures of 2,760 ºC that are generated by friction with the atmosphere gases, NASA has designed the Orion ship with a especially thick and resistant thermal shield.
However, in the mission without crew Artemis I, the thermal shield cracked during the reentry and ended up detaching several pieces. To prevent it from flying to happen in Artemis II, the Orion will modify the reentry profile avoiding a rebound phase in which gases can be formed within the thermal shield material. But the speed will remain, marking a new record.
image | Liam Yawalis (Nasa)
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