Listen to this audio excerpt from Ernesto Garcia, Rayotech Scientific engineering manager:
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My name is Ernesto Garcia, and I am an engineering manager at Rayotech Scientific in San Diego, in charge of fabricating the windowpanes for the Orion spacecraft.
Fabricating Orion's windowpanes entails a very strict manufacturing process. It involves first starting from a giant sheet of glass that we cut down to near net shape. Once we get down to that near net shape, we perform a grinding operation. We grind the window edges and grind the faces.
Once we do all that grinding, we perform a specialized process where we actually strengthen the edges of the window. Since most of the window's strength comes from the edges, we want to make sure that those are perfect and pristine, and so we minimize any subsurface damage that is around that. Then we send it off to get polished and coated.
After that, we perform pressure testing in our lab, which is really the most important thing that is required for this window to prove that it can survive in space. We apply the required stresses to make sure that the windows can survive on the Orion spacecraft.
The opportunity to be part of this program has been something that I'm really proud of.
