NASA\u2019s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) have provided a report to NASA administrator Charlie Bolden stating they are impressed with the Agency\u2019s work towards the opening missions for the Orion spacecraft. However, they admitted it is \u201cchallenged\u201d by budget constraints.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nASAP Meeting:<\/p>\n
The influential body \u2013 probably best known for taking a swipe at the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) during calls for an extension of the orbiter\u2019s service life \u2013 are a naturally conservative organization.<\/p>\n
Although their cautious \u2013 and sometimes frosty \u2013 attitude towards commercial crew has been thawing of late, the ASAP\u2019s focus on crew safety ranges across all of NASA\u2019s human space flight activities, including the test programs, such as Orion\u2019s first trip into space during the Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1).<\/p>\n
![\"VAB](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/VAB1.jpg\" "\\"VAB")
With their opening meeting of 2013 hosted at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the panel were taken on a tour of the ongoing modifications to the spaceport, as it attempts to transition from Shuttle operations to a launch complex capable of hosting both government and commercial vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cModifications to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) are in process and fixed decks are being replaced with moveable decks to deal with different types of boosters. This puts KSC in position to launch the next generation of launch systems,\u201d reported the ASAP in a letter to General Bolden, dated February 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ground system development is ongoing \u2013 the processing facility, the VAB, the mobile launchers, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spaceflight news subscription (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n However, despite this future capability, KSC still only has one new launch vehicle as a confirmed tenant, the Space Launch System (SLS).<\/p>\n With only one Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) securing a commercial spacecraft \u2013 Boeing\u2019s CST-100 at present \u2013 KSC is under pressure to find uses for its numerous facilities, with a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) warning unused buildings at NASA facilities may have to be removed to save on costs.<\/p>\n Even the EFT-1 mission, scheduled for 2014, is only using part of KSC\u2019s Operations & Checkout (O&C) building for Orion processing, ahead of its launch from next door\u2019s Cape Canaveral on a Delta IV Heavy with a Delta Cyrogenic Second Stage (DCSS).<\/p>\n This Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) is also set to ride with Orion during its first two missions with the SLS, known as Exploration Mission -1 and -2 (EM-1, EM-2).<\/p>\n The biggest challenge is a more obvious concern, relating to the budget uncertainty between EFT-1 and EM-1.<\/p>\n \u201cWith regard to schedule, EFT-1 is on track. The highest risk item for EFT-1 is the booster, which has an interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) that will be different from EM-1,\u201d added the ASAP meeting minutes. \u201cThe highest risk item for the program is the near-term budget for EM-1. It is not the total cost that is the problem, but the phasing of the expected funding.\u201d<\/p>\n EFT-1 is set to mimic a large part of the expected stresses Orion will endure when it completes Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) missions, with the results a major data point for Orion\u2019s Critical Design Review (CDR) in 2015. The panel classed the heat shield testing as \u201cthe key technology driver.\u201d<\/p>\n The panel\u2019s discussions with the Exploration Systems team at KSC also confirmed they still need to find some mass savings, an ominous throwback to the Constellation Program (CxP) days, when engineers battled to shed mass off the Orion spacecraft, due to performance issues with the Ares 1 launch vehicle.<\/p>\n Click here for Orion articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/orion\/<\/p>\n The \u201cmass control\u201d effort is highly unlikely to be related to the Block 1 SLS \u2013 with its 70mT capability believed to be an underestimate of its actual performance \u2013 and more to do with Orion\u2019s historical challenges with its own mass after launch and ahead of re-entry.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of engineering, the two principal technical concerns are mass control (approximately 4000 to 5000 lbs. in the total system that they want to remove) and the pad emergency egress system,\u201d continued the overview to General Bolden, which also praised the work that has taken place on Orion, despite over $1 billion being spent over the many years it has been in development.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Daniel Dumbacher, Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems, started his briefing with an interesting point: the hardware for ESD, especially with regard to the Orion, goes back to 2008, e.g., the abort motor testing, the air-bag drop testing, etc. Most importantly, within the past year, NASA has had very successful Orion environmental and parachute testing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been a great deal of progress on this program that the ASAP feels is vital to the nation\u2019s space interests.\u201d<\/p>\n ASAP Chair, VADM (Ret.) Joseph Dyer, agreed that the program is challenged by the budget constraint, but remains impressed with the progress.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause ESD is \u201clevel funded,\u201d this drives some constraints and inefficiencies and challenges the program team,\u201d he noted. \u201cOverall, they are doing very well and it is an impressive undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n (Images: L2 and NASA)<\/p>\n (NSF and L2 are providing full exploration roadmap level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS\/CRS\/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles.)<\/p>\n (Click here to join L2: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA\u2019s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) have provided a report to NASA administrator Charlie Bolden stating they are impressed with the Agency\u2019s work towards the opening missions for the Orion spacecraft. However, they admitted it is \u201cchallenged\u201d by budget constraints. ASAP Meeting: The influential body \u2013 probably best known for taking a swipe at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30396,"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":[8862,3688,9034,7766,640,624],"class_list":["post-39906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-asap","tag-eft-1","tag-hlv","tag-ksc","tag-orion","tag-sls"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39906"}],"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=39906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}See Also<\/h4>\n
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![\"ICPS](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z871.jpg\" "\\"ICPS")
Citing challenges, the ASAP noted concerns with the differences between the ICPS for the EFT-1 launch on the Delta IV-H and its two missions riding with the SLS \u2013 likely focused on the integration challenges for when the ICPS moves away from its parent launch vehicle to be part of the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLV).<\/p>\n![\"EFT-1](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z732.jpg\" "\\"EFT-1")
EFT-1\u2019s primary goal is to test Orion\u2019s heat shield, the first high energy return of a spacecraft intended for human crews since the Apollo era.<\/p>\n![\"Rollercoaster](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z721.jpg\" "\\"Rollercoaster")
The ASAP also mentioned the ongoing evaluations into the Emergency Egress System (EES) as a technical concern.<\/p>\n