When a space shuttle blasts off, it goes from zero to 17,500 miles per hour in eight and a half minutes. So how do scientists make sure a space ship can take that kind of punishment?

At the Goddard Spacecraft Test and Integration Facility at NASA, they design, build and test spacecraft, satellites and all of the parts that go into them. NASA engineer Edward Packard is one of the scientists who helps design and build the spacecraft - and then tries very hard to break them.

Edward’s main aim is to make sure that anything that goes up into space will work - in any conditions. For example, space is really cold. “Deep space is 2.7 degrees Kelvin,” he says. “It’s a vacuum – the radiation environment is horrendous, with the Sun throwing particles and electromagnetic waves at us.”

“New Horizons will be going 70,000 miles an hour to get to Pluto,” says Edward. “It will take nine years.” Could you imagine your car lasting nine years, 3.5 billion miles, without a check-up?

Noisy launches

Equipment and astronauts are severely jolted and shaken during a space launch and the NASA scientists also have to make sure the equipment can with stand the extreme noise of a launch.

“We have a huge acoustic cell that we stick the spacecraft in and it will give us 150 decibels of noise, to simulate launches,” says Edward. “We actually are able to break the spacecraft pretty well in there, just with noise.”

The Goddard facility tests anything that goes into space – from little electronics boxes that get assembled into instruments that get mounted onto spacecraft, to the spacecraft themselves.

Shake and bake

“We shake, bake and radiate,” says Edward. “We have shaker tables to shake spacecraft to simulate the launch environment. These are capable of 40,000 lbs of force.

“We bake them in our space environment simulators to ensure that they’re going to survive the heat. We evacuate all the air out and we have all sorts of auxiliary systems that heat and cool the spacecraft, to make sure it’s going to be able to survive the orbits around the Earth.

Space Travel

Only around 450 people have flown into space and 12 people have walked on the Moon, but NASA has plans to take more humans further into space.

“We’ve got two things going right now,” says NASA’s Melissa Mathews. “The International Space Station, which is orbiting the Earth with two astronauts on board. We’re also working on a next generation space craft, a Crew Exploration Vehicle or CEV.

“It’s going to be able to go to the Space Station, the Moon and to Mars, and it can carry as many as six people,” says Melissa. The design will include cargo capsules, crew capsules and landers, launched by a large rocket. “Capsule design works really well. It’s going to protect the heat shield until it’s ready to be used for re-entry, unlike the space shuttle which has the heat shield exposed.”

 “We’re looking at setting up lunar outposts where people are going to live and work, much like they’re doing on the International Space Station today but, just taking it further to the Moon. Then we’ll establish ways to go to Mars and who knows, there are so many places in the universe that we could visit,” she says.

Learn more:

Visit NASA’s home page

Learn more about the Goddard facility at NASA

Check out NASA’s Crew Exploration Vehicle