Sneak preview of NASA’s new Orion spacecraft

William Atkins
Friday, 14 December 2007 20:37

Science - Space

A mockup of the Orion spacecraft is currently under development by NASA. When completed, Orion will carry four to six astronauts to the International Space Station, the Moon, and then onwards to Mars. They may go to other places in the solar system where astronauts have not gone before.            

The Fabrication Branch at the NASA Dryden Space Research Center is constructing a mockup of the Orion crew module. It is much simpler than what the final Orion spacecraft will be, but its size is the same as the completed spacecraft.

The Orion mockup does not contain its forward bay on its upper volume, but what has been built is to the same specifications as the actual spacecraft to be later built in order to conduct realistic and accurate simulations.

NASA’s aeronautical research center, Dryden, is located within the Edwards Air Force Base, in California. The mockup of the Orion spacecraft is part of NASA's new Project Constellation.

Pictures of the mockup appear at the NASA Project Constellation website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/mockup.html. Similar pictures appear at: http://www.news.com/2300-11397_3-6217201-1.html.

When completed the Orion spacecraft will be launched by the Ares I launch vehicle. Lockheed Martin has been awarded the NASA contract to design, develop, and build the Orion spacecraft. It will be launched from Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Its first series of missions could be to the International Space Station. However, NASA is working on, instead, using commercial orbital transportation services. If these services are unavailable, Orion may be tasked to provide delivery of crewmembers and supplies to the space station.

To date, NASA is working on the launch abort system (LAS) for Orion. This is the reason why a mockup was built at Dryden. The abort system will allow the astronauts to pull the Orion spacecraft away from the booster rockets in case an emergency condition occurs while on the launch pad or during launch. The LAS will use a solid rocket motor to separate the crew module from the launch vehicle.

Dryden scientists and engineers are also using the Orion mockup to develop and verify such systems as avionics and instrumentation in preparation for the first flight tests of the abort system.

NASA expects to conduct two pad abort and four ascent abort flight tests with these mockups. The tests are scheduled to be conducted between the fall of 2008 and the end of 2011. 

The tests will be held at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Three of the four ascent tests will be flown from a test launch vehicle called the Orion Abort Test Booster (a small solid rocket launcher), while the fourth one is expected to be flown from an Ares I-Y (a protoype of the Ares I launch vehicle).