{"id":6508,"date":"2015-10-07T12:09:44","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T19:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.plm.automation.siemens.com\/t5\/Simcenter-Blog\/Redesigning-the-Orion-spacecraft-heat-shield\/ba-p\/317385"},"modified":"2026-03-26T05:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:59:15","slug":"redesigning-the-orion-spacecraft-heat-shield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/redesigning-the-orion-spacecraft-heat-shield\/","title":{"rendered":"Redesigning the Orion spacecraft heat shield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/exploration\/systems\/orion\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle<\/A> will carry up to six people and is intended for deep space travel and as such must be able to withstand the heat generated from a re-entry into Earth\u2019s atmosphere at the high-speed deep space return velocities as well as the impact loads arising from an ocean splash down.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><span class=\"lia-inline-image-display-wrapper lia-image-align-inline\" style=\"width: 500px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/siemensplm.i.lithium.com\/t5\/image\/serverpage\/image-id\/16417iE3CA449F7DD2E04E\/image-size\/large?v=1.0&amp;px=999\" alt=\"Orion Heat Shield Femap Model\" title=\"Orion Heat Shield Femap Model\" \/><\/span><\/P><\/p>\n<p><P>In the following video, Jim Jeans, CEO of <a href=\"http:\/\/structures.aero\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Structural Design and Analysis Inc.<\/A> (SDA), a structures and services company for the aerospace industry, talks about how Femap was used with the Orion heat shield redesign project. With a more efficient design, and using composite materials, SDA\u2019s engineers reduced the weight of the heat shield by 50%, achieving a 1,500 pound weight saving.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><\/p>\n<div class=\"lia-vid-container video-embed-center\">\n<div id=\"lia-vid-k2dTczeDovzD51qIZyJLNOJMO68nUUPow400h300r919\" class=\"lia-video-ooyala-player-container\"><\/div>\n<p><script>LITHIUM.OoyalaPlayer.addVideo('https:\/\/player.ooyala.com\/static\/v4\/production\/', 'lia-vid-k2dTczeDovzD51qIZyJLNOJMO68nUUPow400h300r919', 'k2dTczeDovzD51qIZyJLNOJMO68nUUPo', {\"pcode\":\"sxdjkxOluLl_gSQrV57FiGraFE2-\",\"playerBrandingId\":\"ODI0MmQ3NjNhYWVjODliZTgzY2ZkMDdi\",\"width\":\"400px\",\"height\":\"300px\"});<\/script><a class=\"video-embed-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.plm.automation.siemens.com\/t5\/video\/gallerypage\/video-id\/k2dTczeDovzD51qIZyJLNOJMO68nUUPo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">(view in My Videos)<\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle will carry up to six people and is intended for deep space travel and as such must be able to withstand the heat generated from a re-entry into Earth\u2019s atmosphere&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[174,1],"tags":[5],"industry":[],"product":[501],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-success-story","category-news","tag-cae-simulation","product-simcenter-femap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6510,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508\/revisions\/6510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6508"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=6508"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=6508"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}