NASA Orion (MPCV) spacecraft on the move

NASA's Orion spacecraft, preparing for it's first flight, departs the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building on its way to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. 

Orion is scheduled for a test flight in early December. 

Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

NASA is one step closer to launching its newest spacecraft designed for humans.

Workers at Kennedy Space Center gathered to watch as the Orion capsule emerged from its assembly hangar Thursday, less than three months from its first test flight.

The capsule, sealed for protection, slowly made its way to its fueling depot atop a 36-wheel platform.

The capsule and its attached service module and adapter ring stretched 40 feet (12 meters) high.

"Isn't this awesome?" said Kennedy's director, Robert Cabana, a former space shuttle commander.

"This is our step to the future, the exploration of establishing a presence in the solar system."

Space center employees lined up along the rope barricade to snap pictures of Orion capsule, NASA's lofty follow-on to the now-retired space shuttle program.

During its Dec. 4 test flight, the unmanned capsule will shoot more than 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) into space and take two big laps around Earth before re-entering the atmosphere at 20,000 mph (32,000 kph) and parachuting into the Pacific off the San Diego coast. The entire mission will last 4½ hours.

The second Orion flight won't occur until around 2018 when another unmanned capsule soars atop NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS), still under development.

NASA intends to put astronauts aboard Orion in 2021 for deep space exploration; each capsule can accommodate up to four.

The plan is to use Orion for getting humans to asteroids and Mars, no space station ferry trips for Orion.

A handful of private U.S. companies are competing for these short taxi flights; NASA expects in the next week or so to pick one or two candidates for funding.

NASA's Orion spacecraft, preparing for it's first flight, departs the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building on its way to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. 

Orion is scheduled for a test flight in early December. 

Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

While Orion may resemble an oversize Apollo capsule on the outside, everything inside and out is modern and top-of-the-line, officials noted Thursday.

"I'm as excited as can be," said NASA's Orion production operations manager, Scott Wilson.

For Orion's dry run, the Lockheed Martin Corp.-built capsule will have hunks of aluminum in place of seats for ballast, and simulators instead of actual cockpit displays. A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket will do the heavy lifting.

When asked by a reporter, Cabana said he wishes Orion's flight pace was quicker.

NASA's Orion spacecraft, preparing for it's first flight, arrives at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Orion is scheduled for a test flight in early December. 

Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

"But it is what it is," he said. "Given the budget that we have, I think we've got the best program that you could imagine."

Orion has its roots in the post-Columbia shuttle era; it originated a decade ago as a crew exploration vehicle to get astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and managed to survive the cancellation of the Constellation moon project.

NASA Orion crew module completed

NASA’s first completed Orion crew module sits atop its service module at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

The crew and service module will be transferred together on Wednesday to another facility for fueling, before moving again for the installation of the launch abort system.

At that point, the spacecraft will be complete and ready to stack on top of the Delta IV Heavy rocket that will carry it into space on its first flight in December.

For that flight, Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), Orion will travel 3,600 miles above the Earth, farther than any spacecraft built to carry people has traveled in more than 40 years, and return home at speeds of 20,000 miles per hour, while enduring temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Image Credit: NASA/Rad Sinyak

NASA Orion Spacecraft: Back Shell Tile Panels Installed

Inside the Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians dressed in clean-room suits have installed a back shell tile panel onto the Orion crew module and are checking the fit next to the middle back shell tile panel.

Preparations are underway for Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1.

Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars.

It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

Two one-inch-wide holes have been drilled into tiles on Orion’s back shell to simulate micrometeoroid orbital debris damage. 

Sensors on the vehicle will record how high temperatures climb inside the hole during Orion’s return through Earth’s atmosphere following its first flight in December.

Image Credit: NASA

The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch later this year atop a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to an altitude of 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface.

The two-orbit, four-hour flight test will help engineers evaluate the systems critical to crew safety including the heat shield, parachute system and launch abort system.

Image Credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

NASA Preparations for Second Orion Underway Recovery Test

At the U.S. Naval Base San Diego in California, the NASA Orion boilerplate test vehicle and support hardware are secured in the well deck of the USS Anchorage on July 29, 2014 for Underway Recovery Test 2.

NASA, Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Navy will conduct tests in the Pacific Ocean to prepare for recovery of the Orion crew module, forward bay cover and parachutes on its return from a deep space mission. 

The second underway recovery test will allow the teams to demonstrate and evaluate the recovery processes, procedures, new hardware and personnel in open waters. 

The Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program is conducting the underway recovery tests.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars.

It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

After traveling 3,600 miles into space in December on the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion will return to Earth at a speed of 20,000 miles per hour and endure temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit before landing in the Pacific Ocean.

For the team tasked with recovering it, that is where the work begins.

NASA and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin are teaming up with the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense's Human Space Flight Support Detachment 3 to test techniques for recovering Orion from the water during Underway Recovery Test (URT) 2, Aug. 1-4, off the coast of San Diego, California.

URT 2 will pick up where URT 1 left off. During that first underway recovery test in February, dynamic conditions caused activities to conclude before all of the test objectives were met.

Since then, the team has been working on concepts that would allow them to safely recover Orion despite such conditions.

"During this test, the team will investigate alternative procedures and recovery methods," said Mike Generale, Orion Recovery Operations manager and Recovery Test director at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "One of the goals of the test is to have a primary and alternate means of recovering the Orion crew module for Exploration Flight Test-1 later this year."

The data gathered during Exploration Flight Test-1 will influence design decisions, validate existing computer models and innovative new approaches to space systems development, and reduce overall mission risks and costs for later Orion flights.

The recovery of the vehicle is one of the things the flight will test, and the underway recovery tests prepare the combined NASA, Lockheed, and U.S. Navy team for the task.

Read the full article here

Watch the complete photostream of NASA preparations on Flickr

Space Launch System (SLS): NASA’s Next Generation Launchers

Image Credit: NASA

NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, will be the most powerful rocket in history.

The flexible, evolvable design of this advanced, heavy-lift launch vehicle will meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs.

In addition to carrying the Orion spacecraft, SLS will transfer important cargo, equipment and science experiments to deep space, providing the nation with a safe, affordable and sustainable means to expand our reach in the solar system.

It will allow astronauts aboard Orion to explore multiple deep-space destinations including an asteroid and ultimately Mars.

The first configuration of the SLS launch vehicle will have a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit to test the performance of the integrated system.

As the SLS is evolved, it will be the most powerful rocket ever built and provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons) to enable missions even farther into our solar system.

Orion Spacecraft's Boosters for First Flight Test Arrive at Port Canaveral, Florida

A barge arrives at the U.S. Army Outpost wharf at Port Canaveral in Florida, carrying two of the three United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy boosters for NASA’s upcoming Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) with the Orion (MPCV) spacecraft.

The core booster and starboard booster will be offloaded and then transported to the Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF), at Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The port booster and the upper stage are planned to be shipped to Cape Canaveral in April. 

At the HIF, all three boosters will be processed and checked out before being moved to the nearby launch pad and hoisted into position.

Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations in deep space, including an asteroid and Mars.

It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. 

During the uncrewed EFT-1 flight, Orion will travel 3,600 miles into space -- farther than a spacecraft built for humans has been in more than 40 years -- and orbit the Earth twice.

The capsule will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at speeds approaching 20,000 mph, generating temperatures as high as 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

The data gathered during the flight will influence design decisions, validate existing computer models and innovative new approaches to space systems development, as well as reduce overall mission risks and costs for later Orion flights.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA Orion multipurpose crew vehicle: Triple Fairings Jettison Test completed successfully

The three panels or fairings encapsulating a stand-in for Orion’s service module successfully detach and fall into the Fairing Catch System during a test Nov. 6, 2013 at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

The three panels or fairing that moments before encapsulated a stand-in for Orion’s service module lay safely in the Fairing Catch System after a test demonstrating their detachment system on Nov. 6, 2013, at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

The three massive panels protecting a test version of NASA's Orion multipurpose crew vehicle successfully fell away from the spacecraft Wednesday in a test of a system that will protect Orion during its first trip to space next year.

The panels, called fairings, encase Orion's service module and shield it from the heat, wind and acoustics it will experience during the spacecraft's climb into space.

The service module, located directly below the crew capsule, will contain the in-space propulsion capability for orbital transfer, attitude control and high-altitude ascent aborts when Orion begins carrying humans in 2021.

It also will generate and store power and provide thermal control, water and air for the astronauts. The service module will remain connected to the crew module until just before the capsule returns to Earth.

Artist's rendering of NASA Orion during Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1)

During Orion's Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), the spacecraft's flight test next year, a test service module will be attached to the capsule.

"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."

Unlike conventional rocket fairings, these panels are designed to support half of the weight of Orion's crew module and launch abort system during launch and ascent, which improves performance, saves weight and maximizes the size and capability of the spacecraft.

Each panel is 14 feet high and 13 feet wide. The fairings' work is done soon after launch. They must be jettisoned when Orion has reached an altitude of about 560,000 feet.

To make that possible, six breakable joints and six explosive separation bolts are used to connect the fairing panels to the rocket and each other.

In a carefully timed sequence, the joints are fired apart, followed shortly by the bolts. Once all of the pyrotechnics have detonated, six spring assemblies will push the three panels away, leaving the service and crew module exposed to space as they travel onward.

NASA Orion Crew Spacecraft (MPCV) Uncovered

Credit: Jim Grossmann/NASA

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Lockheed Martin crew members uncover the Orion ground test vehicle in the Launch Equipment Test Facility (LETF). 

After a move from the Operations and Checkout Facility to the LETF, the ground test vehicle will undergo a series of pyrotechnic bolt tests. 

Launching atop NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System, also under development, the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle MPCV will carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and back. 

It will also provide emergency abort capabilities. Image released May 13, 2013.