KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – All of the key hardware elements being assembled for NASA’s new Orion spacecraft launching just under one year from now are nearing completion at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) – at the same time as a crucial and successful hardware test in California this week helps ensure that the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) vehicle will be ready for an on-time liftoff.
Orion is NASA’s first spaceship designed to carry human crews on long duration flights to deep space destinations beyond low Earth orbit, such as asteroids, the moon, Mars and beyond.
In a major construction milestone, Orion’s massive Service Module (SM) was hoisted out from the tooling stand where it was manufactured at the Operations and Checkout Building (O & C) at KSC and moved to the next assembly station where it will soon be mated to the spacecraft adapter cone.
The SM should be mated to the crew module (CM) by year’s end, Orion managers told Universe Today during my recent inspection tour of significant Orion hardware at KSC.
“We are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” said Jules Schneider, Orion Project manager for Lockheed Martin at KSC, during an exclusive interview with Universe Today inside the Orion clean room at KSC. “We are moving fast!”
The Orion CM recently passed a significant milestone when it was “powered on” for the first time at KSC.
“We are bringing Orion to life. Lots of flight hardware has now been installed.”
And on the other side of the country, the Service Module design passed a key hurdle on Wednesday (Nov. 6) when the trio of large spacecraft panels that surround the SM were successfully jettisoned from the spacecraft during a systems test by Lockheed Martin that simulates what would happen during an actual flight several minutes after liftoff.
“Hardware separation events like this are absolutely critical to the mission and some of the more complicated things we do,” said Mark Geyer, Orion program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We want to know we’ve got the design exactly right and that it can be counted on in space before we ever launch.”
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for Orion and responsible for assembly, testing and delivery of the Orion EFT-1 spacecraft to NASA that’s slated for an unmanned test flight targeted to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida in September 2014.
The CM rests atop the SM similar to the Apollo Moon landing program architecture.
However in a significant difference from Apollo, the Orion fairings support half the weight of the crew module and the launch abort system during launch and ascent. The purpose is to improve performance by saving weight thus maximizing the vehicles size and capability.
The SM also provides in-space power, propulsion capability, attitude control, thermal control, water and air for the astronauts.
At Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale, California facility a team of engineers used a series of precisely-timed, explosive charges and mechanisms attached to the Orion’s protective fairing panels in a flight-like test to verify that the spacecraft can successfully and confidently jettison them as required during the ascent to orbit.
The trio of fairing panels protect the SM radiators and solar arrays from heat, wind and acoustics during ascent.
“This successful test provides the Orion team with the needed data to certify this new fairing design for Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) next year. The test also provides significant risk reduction for the fairing separation on future Orion manned missions,” said Lance Lininger, engineering lead for Lockheed Martin’s Orion mechanism systems in a statement.
This was the 2nd test of the fairing jettison system. During the first test in June, one of the three fairing panels did not completely detach due to an interference “when the top edge of the fairing came into contact with the adapter ring and kept it from rotating away and releasing from the spacecraft,” said NASA.
2013 has been an extremely busy and productive year for the Orion EFT-1 team.
“There are many significant Orion assembly events ongoing this year,” said Larry Price, Orion deputy program manager at Lockheed Martin, in an interview with Universe Today at Lockheed Space Systems in Denver.
“This includes the heat shield construction and attachment, power on, installing the plumbing for the environmental and reaction control system, completely outfitting the crew module, attached the tiles, building the service module and finally mating the crew and service modules (CM & SM),” Price told me.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
The two-orbit, four- hour flight will lift the Orion spacecraft and its attached second stage to an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) – and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 years.
Orion is NASA’s first spaceship designed to carry human crews on long duration flights to deep space destinations beyond low Earth orbit, such as asteroids, the moon, Mars and beyond.
But why?
So ummm I’m that guy that comes here to berate USAmericans to wake the hell up. I just spent 3 weeks working in Illinois and also some time in Florida. Every opportunity that came along i asked people what they could tell me about the NASA Orion project. Not one, out of literally hundreds, could say anything slightly coherent about the project. Or its mission. We did have a 16 year old summer intern from local high school who thought it was going to land on Mars. afterall, Illinois is bush country right? heh. By the way, what is Orion’s mission really? I’m challenging you dear reader to simply respond with your own actual thoughts BEFORE you look up the Wiki page. Just be your honest self.
Try it yourself. find some ordinary people who seem friendly enough and just ask them if they mind talking about the USA’s role in space. Watch what happens: “Honey, time to go, the SUV needs gas.” They have not a clue as to the supreme importance to them and the world that the USA actually lead in space. This is reality man. No one gives a toss about using the ISS or even shuttling crews and gear up and down. No one gives a toss about anything involving intellect in the USA. Its all about the freebies and getting someone to pay my fair share. Ick!
My point is not to berate or belittle anyone even tho I said that. My purpose is to provoke some discussion around the morality of having a space program that only a few want and even fewer who understand its purpose. I find these “orion is on track with more great successes” type stories echo 1984 style state propaganda. NASA is too chicken to look for actual life so I hope the Indians…I mean southern asians, and the chinese eastern asians get to mars and do some work of actual interest … to me.
I am Not a troll, I’m a “fisher of men”. Its not trolling if some of you actually respond without going all weird and nasty. I’m just hoping for some plain language about what the heck has/is happening to my usta-be favorite country. Aw, ok, you’re still no 1 in my book. but have you ever been to Basidium? Have to squint your eyes just right…My god, its full of John Galt!
The science that goes into creating this capsule will go into technology like your refrigerator, your oven, your more powerful batteries, industrial ovens where they can use heat shield technologies…… Even if it never flies those engineers that built it will use the experience learned by this capsule and use it in other fields.
Coacervate, what you say might be true but, when you hope that India or China “get to mars and do some work of actual interest”, it sounds like you’ve forgotten who did all of the “grunt work” for all of the others that might come after. The Soviet and American programs made (probably) All of the important discoveries that will enable man to once again go the distance to where ever in the universe. China and India don’t have to spend as much resources and time learning and proving the basics that haven’t changed in the past 40 years. True, it’s disappointing that our space program has been almost dormant since the moon landings, but we took the important first steps in that program and hopefully we’ll focus again on exploring space. When most men, women, and children can’t seem to survive without their cell phones and laptops and video games, it’s no wonder that they can’t speak intelligently about the Orion Program. Also, we have a military/industrial complex that’s is used to getting obscenely wealthy by supplying war making material, and they seem to be calling the shots for whomever is in the Oval Office. That needs to be changed, and a new space program might provide stimulus for that change. It sounds to me that you’re just one other disappointed person who wants to see the USA regain its eminence in space exploration. You’re not alone.
Agreed wholeheartedly, what I say might be true. Truth was never truer nor is it my strongest point. No, it is not about me. Absolutely agree that we have the USA/Russia to thank … China and India, Japan, Space X all stand on the shoulders of giants.
I am one small voice. I left the USA to be able to do the sort of research that interested me, to be unencumbered by the moral majority, be they zealots who murder doctors or peer-pressure from fellow “scientists” wishing to advance their careers by sacrificing their principles. If, as you say, I am not alone, why do I feel so lonely? snif
None of that matters. What matters is the majority of the people who have slipped into some weird cult of ignorance and dudes and dudettes, let me tell you…if you dont wake yourselves up…wake your children to adopt some sort of value system, you will cease to be. The freaking end is freaking nigh.
And so here…where else but here, do we have a discussion about the problem? I’m just a lab rat. But I am one fearsome rodent and I’m not gonna take it anymore. Revolution! Burn down the Mission… and if you are still wondering what I am on about, then I invite you to join Ofal2 below and sing along with Obama.
But lads, If you are a son of Liberty, come fight with me for glory and women…I mean freedom. Freedom to become women or scientists or any derned thing you want, just please wake the hell up. What does it take to wake a sleeping giant?
Isn’t it obvious? USAmerica might wake up when China lands on Mars. So Fly High mighty dragon ships..Go you beautiful communist totalitarian freedom fighters. Poke the giant. I dare you. Poke her hard. Right where it counts. Poke her in her glory days.
It’s an expensive and over-engineered “lifeboat” for the ISS that will hopefully never have to be used.
It’s a government “jobs program” for 8000 people.