Moon 2024 Update

The NASA plans for the Moon landing in 2024 are sketched out.

The NASA push for a 2024 moon landing will require an additional $8 billion per year over the next 5 years.

Cost and bureaucracy may doom the 2024 push for a moon landing.

NASA is trying to decide if it wants to do the Green Run test or not for the SLS.

NASA is considering flying the Orion EM-1 test on a different rocket than the SLS.

NASA is trying to defend the Gateway Station in the 2024 landing.

ESA Delivers First Service Module for Orion Flight

The powerhouse that will help NASA’s Orion spacecraft venture beyond the Moon is stateside. The European-built service module that will propel, power and cool during Orion flight to the Moon on Exploration Mission-1 arrived from Germany at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday to begin final outfitting, integration and testing with the crew module and other Orion elements.

The service module is integral to human missions to the Moon and Mars. After Orion launches on top of the agency’s Space Launch System rocket, the service module will be responsible for in-space maneuvering throughout the mission, including course corrections. The service module will also provide the powerful burns to insert Orion into lunar orbit and again to get out of lunar orbit and return to Earth. It is provided by ESA (European Space Agency) and built by ESA’s prime contractor Airbus of Bremen, Germany. NASA’s prime contractor for Orion, Lockheed Martin, built the crew module and other elements of the spacecraft.

link.

The Orion EM-3 Mission Will bring Two Gateway Modules to Lunar Space

NASA says astronauts will haul two pieces of a small space station to lunar orbit in 2024, during the second crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft.

Plans for the station, which is now referred to as the Gateway, have been shaping up since 2017. The Gateway, Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule represent the core of NASA's plans to send humans back to the Moon and on to Mars. The Gateway is designed to host astronauts for short-term stays, serve as a waypoint for crewed surface missions and receive samples robotically collected from both the Moon and Mars.

The first piece of the Gateway is a power and propulsion module, scheduled to launch on a commercial rocket in 2022. The first crewed Orion mission, a lap around the Moon that will not stop in orbit, is scheduled a year later, in 2023. Then, in 2024, another Orion crew will fly to lunar orbit and visit the power and propulsion module, with two more pieces of the Gateway in tow.

"NASA plans to deliver two modules on the third integrated flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, targeted for 2024," said Kathyrn Hambleton, a NASA public affairs officer, in an email.

link.

NASA dropped the RFP for the gateway station 's power and propulsion module already, too.

NASA updated the assembly schedule for the Gateway: note!  Nowhere does it say anything about Russian participation.  The acquisition strategy decision for the airlock Russia was claiming it would build has been delayed until 2020.  I have expect it to be delayed another year, tbh.

Japan wants to participate in the Gateway.

NASA conducted the final parachute test for the Orion capsule.

Airbus is Completing the First Orion Service Module

Airbus Defence and Space is in the home stretch of work to ship the first European Service Module (ESM) to its Florida launch site for integration with the rest of the hardware for NASA’s Orion spacecraft. When fully assembled and tested, Orion will be launched on the Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) test flight to orbit the Moon and return.

ESM-1 is now undergoing subsystem functional testing at its Assembly, Integration, and Testing (AIT) facility in Bremen, Germany, following completion of most hardware that can be installed on-site. Also known as Flight Model-1 (FM-1), the module will be flown to the Kennedy Space Center this summer to begin the sequence of steps to put together the full Orion spacecraft.

As FM-1 nears completion, Flight Model-2 (FM-2) has joined its sister module in the clean room at Bremen to begin its AIT flow. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are also working with prime contractor Airbus on beginning construction of ESM hardware for subsequent modules this summer.

link.

NASA Seeking Long Term Stability and Sustainability of the SLS & Orion

The early missions of Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft will be the first of several missions that travel more than 40,000 miles beyond the moon to demonstrate capabilities in deep space farther than humans have ever traveled, but close enough to return home in days or weeks if needed. With the SLS, Orion, and Exploration Ground Systems programs now past their respective critical design reviews and flight hardware in production for the first integrated mission, NASA is transitioning from design and development to long-term affordability and sustainability in support of the Journey to Mars.

The agency issued a request for information (RFI) inviting industry and NASA centers to provide input that will maximize the long term efficiency and sustainability of production, operations, and maintenance for SLS, Orion, and the supporting ground systems, thereby freeing resources to invest in additional capabilities needed to extend a permanent human presence into deep space. Other required deep space exploration capabilities include habitation, spacewalk activity and docking systems, in-space propulsion, and Mars surface exploration systems, as well as continuous safety improvements.

link.

NASA is Considering Scrapping the Orion Capsule

Eric Berger at Ars Technica reports that NASA has begun to consider possible alternatives to the Orion spacecraft beyond the initial crewed flights of the Lockheed Martin-built deep-space vehicle.

link.

The US Navy Trains to Recover the Orion Space Capsule

European Built Service Module for NASA's Orion Capsule is Delayed 3 Months

The European-built service module for NASA’s Orion crew-transport vehicle will be three months late in being shipped to the United States following modifications to the design recommended by a June 16 program review, a senior European Space Agency official said June 17.

The new shipment date has been tentatively set for late April, rather than late January. ESA, NASA and the two main industrial teams – Airbus Defence and Space for the service module and Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which is prime contractor for Orion — met June 16 at ESA’s Estec facility in Noordwijk, Netherlands, to conclude a service module critical design review.

Nico Dettman, head of ESA’s space transportation department, said the delay is partly a result of the fact that several components could not yet be assessed in the full critical design review and need more time to be integrated into the design.

link.

ESA Begins Building Service Module for NASA Orion Capsule

NASA and European Space Agency officials on May 19 said the European Service Module (ESM) for NASA’s Orion crew-transport vehicle was within budget and on schedule for a late-2018 inaugural flight pending a key review.

But the ESM program remains pressed for time – so much so that flight-model hardware integration is beginning before the program’s critical design review, scheduled for June 16 at ESA’s Estec facility in Noordwijk, Netherlands.

Fully loaded and fueled, the ESM will weigh about 13,000 kilograms at launch and provide Orion’s propulsion, power supply, thermal control and crew life-support elements.

It is the first time that NASA has allowed Europe to occupy such a crucial place in an astronaut-related program and signals the mutual respect between agencies that may be one of the enduring contributions of the international space station.

link. 

and more.

Orion Drop Tests Have Begun

Orion Testing

link.

NASA to Begin Testing European Service Module for Orion

NASA is nearly ready to begin testing of a core component of the Orion spacecraft. A structural test version of the European Service Module has arrived in the United States and will soon undergo a series of tests at NASA’s Glenn Research Center’s Space Power Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, to validate the service module’s design ahead of the EM-1 mission in 2018.

link.

Orion Service Module Testing to Start by ESA

A test version of ESA’s service module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft arrived in the US yesterday after leaving its assembly site in Italy last weekend.

The European Service Module is adapted from Europe’s largest spacecraft, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, which completed its last mission to the International Space Station in February. Just nine months later, prime contractor Airbus Defence & Space in Bremen, Germany, has delivered the first test module.

The module sits directly below Orion’s crew capsule and provides propulsion, power, thermal control, and water and air for four astronauts. The solar array spans 19 m and provides enough to power two households.

A little over 5 m in diameter and 4 m high, it weighs 13.5 tonnes. The 8.6 tonnes of propellant will power one main engine and 32 smaller thrusters.

The structural test article delivered today was built by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. Following initial tests in Europe, it will now undergo rigorous vibration tests in NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio to ensure the structure and components can withstand the extreme stresses during launch.

link.

NASA's First Manned Orion Capsule Likely to Slip two Years to 2023

The first flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft with people on board could be delayed by more than a year to early 2023, agency officials said Sept. 16.

NASA announced that the Orion program had achieved a milestone known as Key Decision Point C (KDP-C), completing a technical and programmatic review of the spacecraft designed to carry astronauts beyond Earth orbit. That review was similar to one completed by Orion’s launch vehicle, the Space Launch System, in August 2014.

The KDP-C review found that there is a 70-percent chance Orion will be ready for its first crewed mission, Exploration Mission 2 (EM-2), no later than April 2023. The review also set a cost baseline for Orion from October 2015 through EM-2 of $6.77 billion. That figure excludes the funding spent on Orion to date, including several billion dollars during the Constellation program prior to its 2010 cancellation.

The April 2023 date is a delay of more than 18 months from the earlier target date of August 2021. NASA is keeping that 2021 date as an “aggressive” internal goal for that mission, even while acknowledging the chance of being ready to fly then is low.

link.

Delta IV Orion EFT-1 Launch Video

NASA Studying Cygnus Derived "Exploration Augmentation Module" for Orion Capsule?

NASA is examining adding a habitation module to the agency’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that would allow astronauts to stay at the asteroid for several additional weeks.

Chris Moore, deputy director of the Advanced Exploration Systems Division at NASA Headquarters, said in a presentation at the 65th International Astronautical Congress here Oct. 3 that the module, intended to serve as a prototype of a habitat for future deep space missions, could be in place before the first crewed mission visits the captured asteroid in the mid-2020s.

“We’re doing a study now of different module types and different times it could be launched,” Moore said. “It may be used on the first mission, if it could be ready in time.”

Under NASA’s current ARM plans, a two-person crew would fly a 26-day mission in an Orion spacecraft once the captured asteroid reached a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. Only about five days would be spent at the asteroid, allowing for two four-hour spacewalks, with the rest of the mission spent in transit between the asteroid and Earth.

That schedule is driven by the life support capabilities of the Orion spacecraft. Moore said the use of what NASA calls the Exploration Augmentation Module would allow the overall mission to last as long as 60 days. “This module would provide extra life support and consumables to extend Orion’s mission,” he said.

One end of the module would attach to the robotic spacecraft that redirected the captured asteroid into lunar orbit, with Orion docking at the opposite end. The module could also include an additional docking port to allow logistics spacecraft to dock while Orion is there, and an airlock so that astronauts could perform spacewalks without depressurizing the Orion, as currently planned.

Moore described the Exploration Augmentation Module as similar in size to a Cygnus spacecraft, a comparison that may not be coincidental. Orbital Sciences Corp. has expressed interest in finding new applications for its Cygnus cargo spacecraft, including use as a habitat module for missions in cislunar or deep space.

link.

NASA Video 'Trial by Fire' Describes Upcoming Orion Capsule Test

NASA Completes First Orion Capsule

link.

Inspiration Mars Made Headway: House Science Committee Plans Hearing on Mars Flyby 2021

House Science Committee plans hearing on “Mars Flyby 2021” SLS/Orion mission concept

The House Science Committee has announced plans for a hearing at 10 am Thursday, February 27th of the full committee with an intriguing title: “Mars Flyby 2021: The First Deep Space Mission for the Orion and Space Launch System?”

link.

Contractors: NASA's Orion Capsule on Track

The biggest accomplishments on the next-generation deep space programs will take place this year, including Orion’s first mission, Space Launch System (SLS) booster and engine firing, and the opening of the SLS Vertical Assembly Center (VAC) – all important steps in preparing for deep space human exploration missions.

NASA’s SLS and Orion four prime contractors met recently at an industry-team meeting to discuss progress to date and ensure the teams are on track for the 2014 and 2017 launches.

link.