One of the final tests of the now-cancelled Orion Program has ended in failure, when a parachute drop test of an Orion boilerplate resulted in the near-destruction of the vehicle. It marks what is likely to be a sad end for the vehicle that was set to take US astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), the moon and eventually Mars \u2013 only to be killed by President Obama\u2019s proposed future for NASA.<\/p>\n
Orion \u2013 one of the good elements of Constellation:<\/p>\n
Orion has suffered from a troubled childhood, mainly through no fault of its own. Design changes, demanded by its awkward launch vehicle \u2013 Ares I \u2013 disrupted any fluidity in Orion\u2019s DACs (Design Analysis Cycle), to the extent its contractor, Lockheed Martin, made the unusual move to fight back at NASA criticism about the quality of their Orion 606C design via official documentation.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The) community must understand that there has not been two consecutive deliveries with the same baseline design, because (of) multiple configuration changes \u2013 prior to PDR (Preliminary Design Review) on a non-consistent design.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/A310.jpg\" "\\"A3\\"")
The continual changes to the baseline mainly concentrated on stripping Orion of it capability and mass, as efforts were made to aid Ares\u2019 lack of performance. While Ares managers made numerous claims of mass reserves, those reserves were almost always based on what had been stripped from Orion.<\/p>\n
Despite being reduced to a four crew vehicle that was only capable of water landings, the ISS Orion was making good progress towards a readiness date of around 2013. Again, the problem was Ares I, which was struggling to keep to yet another refined IOC (Initial Operating Capability) schedule of 2015. The Augustine Committee went further, citing fears of a more realistic date of 2017\/18 for Ares I\u2019s ready-date.<\/p>\n
The main stress on the schedule related to previous and projected lack of funding for the program, with all the long-lead items associated with Ares I \u2013 such as the Upper Stage engine. Orion \u2013 by proxy \u2013 was held to ransom by Ares I\u2019s development timeline.<\/p>\n
NASA managers did back up Orion via its findings on the Augustine Commission\u2019s \u201cFlexible Path\u201d option, placing large support behind a Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) and Orion as the two main vehicles they should move forward with \u2013 whist omitting any key references to Ares I or Ares V.<\/p>\n
Technology News (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n See also NASASpaceflight.com\u2019s Flexible Path Review: Yet Orion was surprisingly placed on the chopping block along with the entire Constellation Program, as the NASA FY2011 budget proposal refused to hand NASA the additional monies required to bring Ares I back onto a viable schedule, instead throwing six billion at a yet-to-be-determined commercial LEO (Low Earth Orbit) replacement, despite serious reservations over crew safety from the advisory body ASAP \u2013 as much as they exposed flaws in their own findings.<\/p>\n The battle between spending billions on what would be a new crew transport versus Orion \u2013 which has matured over its years of design \u2013 may become one of the key battlegrounds when the FY2011 budget is discussed in Congress later this month. For the interim, the Constellation team are still working on the vehicles.<\/p>\n Orion\u2019s Near Term Work:<\/p>\n Orion will continue to at least the DAC-4 phase, which in turn will support the Constellation Program PDR (Preliminary Design Review). The PDR is currently expected to be the final role of the Program before it is shut down.<\/p>\n \u201cSome insights into the Orion work still progressing. Orion Projects recognizes the value in completing these tasks at least in some manner,\u201d noted one of the Orion Project managers in an address tagged as \u201ccontinuing steps\u201d (L2) to his team.<\/p>\n The list of work to be completed included the launch of PA1 (Launch Abort test), the design, construction and eventual testing of a full Orion test article as the DAC-4 design and the PDRs.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a complete list. You should continue on your original plans unless you have coordinated with your supervisor and Orion management. I do recognize that some of our original work (even some of the detail of the items I mentioned above) does not make sense in the current plan and we are ready to remove those requirements once we coordinate. Thanks again for your dedication.\u201d<\/p>\n Orion Drop Test Failure:<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the Orion Project suffered a failure on one of its tests this week, when a boilerplate Orion crashed to Earth after its \u201cparachutes failed to deploy\u201d.<\/p>\n However, the problem is not believed to be Orion or the parachute system\u2019s fault, with the failure memo citing a problem with the rigging associated with the extraction system \u2013 although this is yet to be confirmed, as an investigation will be required.<\/p>\n \u201cA quick heads up that the Orion test drop failed. Looks like the extraction system failed to release so the Orion chute system never deployed,\u201d noted the memo acquired on Tuesday (the day of the failure) by L2. \u201cStill saving the remains but expecting minimal hardware recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n The only other failure was suffered in 2007, when a Drop Test Vehicle (DTV) with an Ares I pilot parachute suffered a fault with the riser connecting the parachute to the DTV.<\/p>\n The vehicle \u2013 dropped from a C-130 at 17000 feet \u2013 was destroyed, with parts of the DTV needing to be extracted from depths of up to 30 feet below the surface.<\/p>\n Orion Isn\u2019t To Blame:<\/p>\n With a large part of the NASA and contractor workforce demoralized by the change of direction noted by President Obama\u2019s proposed plan for the space program, managers have been quick to address their respective teams.<\/p>\n The general theme of the majority of the addresses point toward the upcoming battle in Congress, while others point to finishing their work in style, in order to benefit future programs \u2013 as was seen via an address to the Orion team.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel compelled to offer some thoughts. Please feel free to share them \u2013 with your colleagues as you think appropriate and useful,\u201d noted Dr. Michael G. Ryschkewitsch \u2013 Chief Engineer, Office of the Chief Engineer, NASA HQ \u2013 in an address acquired by L2.<\/p>\n \u201cI have gotten a number of emails and queries about how we arrived where we are today. The ones that bother me most are the ones that amount to \u201cwe must have been stupid to have such a bad plan\u201d and\/or \u201cwe executed so badly that\u2026\u201d Neither one of these sentiments could be further from the truth. Here is my take.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Augustine panel was very clear in their report and in their public briefings that we had a solid plan; we knew what it would cost and that we were executing well. They were also clear that the plan we had was underfunded and could not simultaneously develop the ISS IOC capability and sufficient advance work toward the Moon. They also correctly pointed out that we no longer had sufficient technology investments to give the program long-term legs.<\/p>\n \u201cSo how did we get here? The plan we had was to do those things, appropriately phased, in parallel. When it became clear that the budget could no longer support it all, a decision was made to cut the technological investments with the goal of restoring them later if and when the budget picture improved. That of course never happened.<\/p>\n \u201cDue to a wide variety of continuing resolutions, non-appearance of anticipated increases (perhaps \u201choped\u201d is a better word), etc, we had to repeatedly cut back on the long term activities in favor of the near term. In a word, our stakeholders made the determination that the plan we had was not affordable.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is no different than when we make changes in our personal lives to match what we want to do and how we do it with what we can afford. This is in no way a reflection on the quality of the work or the quality of the people.<\/p>\n \u201cAs much as I feel the loss personally, I know it is nothing compared to that of all the people who have been giving their blood, sweat and every ounce of their creative ability to this effort every day for so long. That said, we cannot just stop.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a great many activities that must be completed and documented so that we can get the benefits of our previous investments. Some of you had experience on the various iterations of the space station and know that the current ISS draws heavily on earlier work completed for the cancelled versions, particularly Freedom.<\/p>\n \u201cHad we simply stopped, rather than finishing the work, documenting and archiving it, we would have lost a great deal.\u201d<\/p>\n While Mr Ryschkewitsch appeared to back the proposed changes to NASA\u2019s future \u2013 to the extent he believes their will be a large amount of exciting work in the future \u2013 the address ends with a note of pride for being associated with the Constellation Program.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has been an immensely difficult undertaking and we have executed it well, learning and improving every day. Our challenge now is to channel our grief into resolution to close out the current work with the same dedication we have had, and then to turn ourselves to very bright future opportunities. I have seen what we can do and I have been extremely impressed. I know we are up to the challenges ahead and I am excited by the opportunities.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you all for all you have done. I look forward to being able to share this future with you as we move upward and outward.\u201d<\/p>\n The next Constellation article will be based on documentation and memos on Ares\u2019 final work, based on the proposed plan.<\/p>\n L2 members<\/em> <\/em>: Documentation \u2013 from which the above article has quoted snippets \u2013 is available in full in the related L2 sections, now over 4500 gbs in size<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the final tests of the now-cancelled Orion Program has ended in failure, when a parachute drop test of an Orion boilerplate resulted in the near-destruction of the vehicle. It marks what is likely to be a sad end for the vehicle that was set to take US astronauts to the International Space Station […]<\/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":[640,8184],"class_list":["post-40871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-orion","tag-sls-orion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40871"}],"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=40871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/13081_single.jpg\" "\\"13081_single\\"")
\u201cWe accept Orion as the basis for American mission-crew access to LEO, and with block upgrades for orbital lifetime and increased entry energy, for return to Earth from deep-space missions,\u201d NASA managers wrote in the 65 page presentation (available on L2). \u201cWe concur that an exploration-class, heavy-lift launch capability is essential for eventual human Mars missions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nPart 1: Battle of the Heavy Lift Launchers \u2013 Monster 200mt vehicle noted
\nPart 2: Manned mission to construct huge GEO and deep space telescopes proposed
\nPart 3: NASA Flexible Path Evaluation of 2025 human mission to visit an asteriod
\nPart 4: Taking Aim on Phobos \u2013 NASA outline Flexible Path precursor to Man on Mars<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/A71.jpg\" "\\"A7\\"")
\u201cAs we move forward it\u2019s important to make sure we are still focused on the critical work. As a management team we are continuing to develop detailed plans, but I want to be clear that there are some general areas that we should work hard to complete. I strongly believe that these areas contribute to our expertise and ability to launch humans into space.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/A52.jpg\" "\\"A5\\"")
The extraction method utilizes a sledge or pallet to deploy the test vehicle out of the back of the C-17. The majority of these tests \u2013 which have included testing the giant parachutes for Ares I first stage recovery \u2013 have been successful, although a previous Orion PTV (Parachute Test Vehicle) suffered a failure back in 2008 (see image left).<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/A9.jpg\" "\\"A9\\"")
In asking the teams to continue to work on the progress Orion has already made, Mr Ryschkewitsch cited the cancellation of Space Station Freedom, and how the work on that project then benefited the design and construction of the ISS.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/A6.jpg\" "\\"A6\\"")
\u201cAs we finish this phase of our work, I am proud to be associated with the Constellation team and particularly with the Engineering workforce and leadership. I cannot take credit but I hope you will allow me to use the word \u201cwe.\u201d We worked hard, we worked smart, and I believe that there is no organization or group of people that could have done better.<\/p>\n