Once they are on their way, coming home will not be easy or quick – the astronauts are now committed to their long journey around the Moon and back. <\/p>\n
During this time, the crew will continue to evaluate the spacecraft systems, but the astronauts themselves will also be evaluated and monitored. <\/p>\n
It is an opportunity to use the crew as guinea pigs – experiments on board will reveal how their bodies are affected this far out in space. <\/p>\n
Radiation is a key concern, as the Sun can hurl out damaging, high-energy particles. <\/p>\n
The astronauts will carry a device called a dosimeter to see how much radiation they are exposed to. They will also practise using their radiation shelter, which is under the floor of the spacecraft. <\/p>\n
The crew need to know how to get into it quickly if a solar storm was coming their way. <\/p>\n
Another practice session to help prepare for the unexpected will involve the astronauts climbing into their bright orange spacesuits, called the Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS). <\/p>\n
These suits are worn to protect the crew during launch and re-entry, and also act as vital protection if there is a problem with the capsule. <\/p>\n
The suit is like a mini-wearable spacecraft, pressurised with inbuilt life-support systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once they are on their way, coming home will not be easy or quick – the astronauts are…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":677400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[24],"tags":[159,783,67,132,68,50146,50147,15244],"class_list":["post-677399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-visual-journalism","tag-visualjournalism","tag-vj"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116281969492229207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}