Crew Transportation With Orion

Four standards-aligned activities help students learn about NASA’s Orion spacecraft that will take astronauts to the Moon and beyond. Using science, engineering and geometry, students design, build and test model spacecraft.

With these activities, students will:

• Use geometry to find the area of the vertical and horizontal cross sections of a crew module.
• Design and build a crew module model that will secure two 2-cm astronaut figures during a drop test.
• Construct and test a model of a target docking system and crew module.
• Design a heat shield to protect the contents of a crew module during a simulated atmospheric reentry.

Next Generation Science Standards: MS-PS2-2, MS-PS3-3, MS-PS3-4, MS-ETS1-1, MS-ETS1-2, MS-ETS1-4

Common Core State Standards: 6.RP.A.1, 6.NS.B.3, 6.G.A.1, 7.NS.A.3, 7.G.A.1, 7.G.A.3, 7.G.B.6, 8.G.C.9

Crew Transportation With Orion

Crew Transportation With Orion (Spanish Version)

Section Links:
Introductory Pages
Activity One: Analyze the Geometry of a Spacecraft
Activity Two: Design a Crew Module
Activity Three: Model a Spacecraft Docking System
Activity Four: Build a Heat Shield
Appendix

This educator guide is part of the Next Gen STEM Moon series. Also in this series:
Crew Transportation With Orion
Propulsion With the Space Launch System
Habitation With Gateway
Landing Humans on the Moon
Hazards to Deep Space Astronauts
Deep Space Communications
Artemis Generation Spacesuits
Build, Launch, Recover