Ablative Shield Test
Video: Developing the Orion Capsule for Earth and Mars Entry. Show this video to your students to relate the challenges of this lab to the egnineering challeges currently being developed.
The video to the left shows this lab in action at Space Camp. The pictures below show my group's success in completing the lab at space camp. I’m proud to say that our eggstronaut survived reentry!​
This activity is an engineering team building challenge.
Ablative shielding is the material used on the outside of the shuttle and being developed for the Orion capsule to protect astronauts on reentry to the earth and potentially mars atmospheres. In this activity, we worked in an engineering group to develop an ablative shied, that would protect our eggstronaut from the heat of the atmosphere during reentry. To complete this challenge we were given a budget of imaginary credits to spend, and a selection of items to use, to develop and build our own ablative shielding. Taking into consideration the materials we could use, and the cost-benefits of those materials, we build a shield. Then we placed the shield in front of our eggstronaut, turned on the propane torch, measured temperature, and determined our level of success. We were scored based on the survival of our eggstronaut, the amount of credits we spent, and the time the eggstronaut was protected. I am proud to say that my team succeeded in protecting our eggstronaut, but didn’t come in first as we spent a little more than one of our competitive groups who were just as successful.