NASA has received Lockheed Martin\u2019s design proposal for the replacement of the Space Shuttle Fleet \u2013 the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). The CEV will be capable of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), as well as transportation to the Moon and Mars.\n<\/p>\n
The vehicle is centre-piece to NASA\u2019s main goal in President Bush\u2019s Vision for Space Exploration \u2013 with a man-rated implementation now set to be brought forward following comments from new NASA administrator Mike Griffin. <\/font> <\/font> As soon as Griffin took office the aim for his term at the helm of the agency was made crystal clear in regards to the timescale for the CEV to be put into service \u2013 following the retirement of the Space Shuttle Fleet. A gap of 2010 to 2014 was simply not viable, according to Griffin.<\/font> <\/font> Lockheed Martin have stated they will be aiming to test a full scale un-manned Technology Demonstrator version of their CEV in 2008 \u2013 with the aim of winning the full contract to go ahead and build the man-rated version of the vehicle.<\/font> <\/font> <\/p>\n While Shuttle bashers on various internet message boards continue to ridicule the notion that winged\/lifting body vehicles have no need for the wings \u2013 a correct point in reference to the operation of a vehicle in space \u2013 Lockheed Martin explained their reasoning for continuing along the lines of a space plane. <\/font><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Basically what we came down on was the side of safety for the crew in making our decision to go with a lifting body,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Patrick McKenzie, CEV Business Development Manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company to Space.com.<\/font><\/p>\n \u201cFor one, that approach allows more cross-range manoeuvrability, thus the craft can touchdown on land versus water. Secondly, a lifting body can lessen the g-loads on returning crews from long-duration space stints.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhether they are lengthy stays in Earth orbit, a prolonged mission on the Moon, or the round-trip trauma on the human body from a Mars mission \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the lifting body approach helps to minimize the g-forces on crew members.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n One feature of the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s CEV design \u2014 along with the firm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teammates \u2014 is use of a titanium shell, along with two layers of thermal protection materials. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n McKenzie noted the progressional elements of the creation and testing of their CEV as a staged affair, with capabilities starting with servicing the International Space Station (ISS), then upgrading to support NASA\u2019s return to the Moon \u2013 followed by the mission to Mars. <\/font><\/p>\n \u201cit makes sense to make sure that the vehicle that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re developing this first go-round is going to be lunar capable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added.<\/font><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re attempting to the best extent possible to build in modularity into our systems and maintainability and ease of operations\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6so as new technologies and new capabilities are developed over the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to take advantage of those without having to totally redesign a new vehicle.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n Spaceflight (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Six Images: <\/font>http:\/\/forum.nasaspaceflight.com\/photos\/photo-thumbnails.asp?albumid=4<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA has received Lockheed Martin\u2019s design proposal for the replacement of the Space Shuttle Fleet \u2013 the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). The CEV will be capable of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), as well as transportation to the Moon and Mars. The vehicle is centre-piece to NASA\u2019s main goal in President Bush\u2019s Vision for Space Exploration […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-42399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42399"}],"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=42399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}