{"id":16688,"date":"2015-01-09T21:33:21","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T13:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/lockheed-martin-begins-taking-apart-first-flown-orion-capsule\/"},"modified":"2015-01-09T21:33:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T13:33:21","slug":"lockheed-martin-begins-taking-apart-first-flown-orion-capsule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/lockheed-martin-begins-taking-apart-first-flown-orion-capsule\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed Martin begins taking apart first flown Orion capsule"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Orion spacecraft inside the Launch Abort System Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA\/Cory Huston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft achieved all but two of 87 demo objectives on its first orbital flight last month, but details on the capsule\u2019s performance will require dismantling the spaceship\u2019s outer skin in a careful procedure designed to keep most of the Orion prototype intact for future testing.<\/p>\n

Orion\u2019s engineering and production teams are back at work this week at Kennedy Space Center after the spaceport\u2019s annual holiday shutdown. Engineers from Lockheed Martin, Orion\u2019s prime contractor, will collect data recorded during the craft\u2019s Dec. 5 test flight and submit a final post-mission report to NASA by March 5, according to Jules Schneider, Lockheed Martin\u2019s Orion operations manager at KSC.<\/p>\n

Their first tasks will be draining the capsule of hazardous hydrazine propellant and ammonia coolant left over from the four-and-a-half hour test flight.<\/p>\n

After launching from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket, the spacecraft reached a peak altitude of 3,600 miles and flew twice around the world before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.<\/p>\n

The test flight was designed to prove the performance of Orion\u2019s heat shield, computers, separation events and other systems.<\/p>\n

A team of U.S. Navy divers stationed on the USS Anchorage amphibious transport ship recovered the capsule from the Pacific for return to port at San Diego. Technicians packed the spacecraft in a shipping container for an eight-day road trip back to Kennedy Space Center, where it arrived Dec. 18.<\/p>\n

Officials plan to move the Orion spacecraft between several KSC facilities in the next few months. It spent the holiday break inside the Launch Abort System Facility at KSC and will next move to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where workers in hazmat suits will decontaminate the capsule after emptying its reservoirs of hydrazine and ammonia, Schneider said.<\/p>\n

In the coming weeks, Lockheed Martin\u2019s Orion team will remove panels covered in black ceramic tiles from the capsule\u2019s backshell, exposing the spaceship\u2019s olive-green aluminum- lithium metal structure, underlying wiring and plumbing, and avionics boxes for inspection.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft\u2019s blackened ablative 16.5-foot diameter heat shield is also slated for removal and analysis, Schneider said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Orion spacecraft at Naval Base San Diego before its shipment back to Florida. Credit: NASA\/Cory Huston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Engineers are wary of taking apart the innards of the capsule beyond the disassembly of the craft\u2019s cocooning outer shell, Schneider told reporters in a briefing Dec. 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of debate right now as to how much of the vehicle we\u2019re going to take apart,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cBecause the vehicle performed so well, there are some people re-thinking how much we want to disassemble \u2014 and how much do they want to keep assembled \u2014 so we can use it going forward on the ground doing testing, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Orion spacecraft that flew Dec. 5 is not expected to fly on another space mission, but NASA and Lockheed Martin plan to use the vehicle for an ascent abort test in 2018. The capsule will launch on a modified rocket motor from a Peacekeeper missile before initiating an abort sequence to validate Orion\u2019s ability to escape from a failed launch.<\/p>\n

The only technical failures on the Dec. 5 test flight were with the spacecraft\u2019s inflatable airbags, which would flip the capsule upright if it splashed down upside down.<\/p>\n

Four of the spaceship\u2019s five airbags pressurized, but two of the bags quickly lost air, leaving two of the orange spheres inflated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose were the only objectives on the entire flight that were not met,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is incredibly pleased with the performance of the vehicle,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cI think you can tell it came through the trial by fire pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider said the metallic skeleton of the next space-rated Orion spacecraft is due to arrive at KSC from a welding facility in New Orleans in November 2015. It will be outfitted with computers, a European-built propulsion and power module and other gear ahead of its launch scheduled for 2018.<\/p>\n

Like Orion\u2019s Dec. 5 flight test, the 2018 mission will not carry astronauts but will blast off aboard NASA\u2019s new heavy-lifting Space Launch System mega-rocket on a flight around the moon. A crewed Orion mission will follow around 2021.<\/p>\n

While observers often focus on when the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System will be ready for the next flight, managers in charge of preparing ground systems at KSC say they are also racing the clock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe long road ahead is kind of a two-edged sword,\u201d said Phil Weber, senior technical integration manager for KSC\u2019s Ground Systems Development and Operations program, which oversees KSC\u2019s upgrades to support SLS and Orion missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got the baseline configuration of what SLS and Orion are going to look like in 2011, so about three years ago,\u201d Weber said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got about three more years to go until EM-1 (Exploration Mission-1 in 2018) \u2026 We\u2019re at hump day right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Major work to be completed before the 2018 launch includes modifications to the mobile launch platform originally built for the canceled Ares 1 rocket. NASA and contractor teams are also upgrading cranes inside the huge Vehicle Assembly Building and installing new platforms inside the high bay where the SLS and Orion will be stacked for launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a tremendous amount to complete in the next three years, so although we want to do the launch as soon as we possibly can, we\u2019ve got to get all of the ground systems put in, validated, ready to receive the flight hardware and then do the processing for the launch,\u201d Weber said. \u201cYou can look at it both ways. We want to launch soon, but we\u2019ve got to have the time to get it ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s scary to me that we\u2019ve got three years to do all this work,\u201d Weber said.<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Orion spacecraft inside the Launch Abort System Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA\/Cory Huston NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft achieved all but two of 87 demo objectives on its first orbital flight last month, but details on the capsule\u2019s performance will require dismantling the spaceship\u2019s outer skin in a careful procedure designed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3688,472,640],"class_list":["post-16688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-eft-1","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-orion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}