“ORION” CREW EXPLORATION VEHICLE

After a review process in which contractor alliances, led by Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, produced designs for the CEV, Lockheed-Martin was named prime contractor for the new spacecraft on August 31, 2006. The Lockheed spacecraft was promptly named “Orion”. Development of the new spacecraft was spread over three schedules.

• Schedule-1: September 2006-September 2013, a $3.9 billion contract to support

the design, development, test, and evaluation of the Orion spacecraft.

• Schedule-2: September 2009-September 2019, a $3.5 billion contract to support

post-development orders for the spacecraft.

• Schedule-3: September 2009-September 2019, a $750 million contract to support

additional spacecraft engineering services.

Orion will be the replacement for the Shuttle when that vehicle is retired in 2010. The new spacecraft is being designed to carry four astronauts to ISS, or to the Moon, and six to Mars. It will consist of a conical crew module and cylindrical service module, which function as one spacecraft until just before re-entry, when the unpro­tected service module will be jettisoned. Only the crew module is protected to allow it to survive re-entry. Orion will have an overall appearance that is superficially similar to the Apollo Command and Service Module. The crew module will be a cone with a 5-metre diameter, a mass of 25 tonnes and 3 times the volume of the Apollo Command Module. The access hatch and windows will all be on one side of the vehicle, with a docking system and a transfer tunnel, surrounded by recovery para­chutes, in the apex. Manoeuvring thrusters will be located around the base and in the apex of the module. The rounded base of the crew module will be covered by a circular heatshield, the backshell, for which Lockheed currently intends to use the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Thermal Protection System developed by NASA Ames Research Centre. Meanwhile, JSC has also purchased Shuttle thermal protec­tion material (blankets) for use on the sides of the cone where the heating regime is less severe. This purchase will also ensure that a Thermal Protection System is available for Orion’s early flights to ISS, if problems delay the Thermal Protection System required for the more severe re-entry from a lunar or deep-space flight. The primary recovery zone will be on land, in the open spaces of North America. Final descent will be supported by parachutes, and landing impact loads will be negated by use of retrograde rockets, or inflatable airbags. The use of airbags with their heavy deployment and inflation systems would require the spacecraft’s backshell to be jettisoned prior to their deployment, while the lighter solid propellant retrograde rockets could be mounted on the parachute harness and the backshell retained in place. Work continues to decide which of these systems will be used. A launch abort, or failed ascent to orbit would require a water landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The water-landing option will also be available as a back-up in the event that land landing is not possible at the end of a completed flight. The crew module will be reusable for up to ten flights.

The crew module will be constructed from aluminium lithium employing stir­welding technology and will provide 10.2 m3 of habitable volume. Life support systems, providing a two-gas oxygen-nitrogen environment, will be manufactured by Hamilton Standard and the flight control avionics by Honeywell, both members of

“ORION” CREW EXPLORATION VEHICLE

Figure 111. Constellation (early concept): the component parts of the new Orion spacecraft are from top to bottom: Launch Abort System with Boost Protection Cover, Crew Compartment, Service Module with circular Solar Array Wings, and launch vehicle adapter.

Lockheed-Martin’s original CEV alliance. The flight avionics will be based on the automated systems employed on the Boeing-787 commercial jet liner. The space­craft’s main instrument panel will be a “glass cockpit’’, employing four large computer screens to display relevant information to the crew. The screens will be accessed via computer keypads and mechanical switches will be kept to a minimum. This is in keeping with modern military jet fighter technology, with which the present and future groups of pilot astronauts will be increasingly familiar. Rather than having repeated controls on both sides of the console, or having need for crew members to swap seats in order to perform particular functions, astronauts will merely call up the relevant data on the computer screen nearest to them. The computers will display easy-to-read visual representations of major systems, rather than the endless strings of numbers so common during the Apollo Moon flights. Almost the entire flight will be automated, with manual override available at critical points. Three primary computers would provide redundancy to the point that two could fail completely and the third could still return Orion to Earth from any point on a lunar flight. A fourth emergency computer will also be installed and will be completely independent of the three primary computers, to the point that it will employ different hardware and a different electrical supply. Rendezvous and docking will employ automated systems, probably based on NASA’s Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) technology, which was tested, not altogether successfully, in 2005. The Orion spacecraft would carry NASA’s new Low Impact Docking System (LIDS).

The Orion service module will serve a similar role to its Apollo predecessor, namely the mounting for the spacecraft’s main propulsion system and reaction control system, and storage of propellants, water, and avionics. The module will be a cylinder 5 metres in diameter and will contain the service module propulsion system, the principal propulsion system in the spacecraft. This engine, which will burn liquid methane in liquid oxygen, has yet to be developed. Manoeuvring thrusters will be mounted in clusters at 90° around the exterior of the module. The spacecraft’s electrical power will come from two large circular photovoltaic arrays mounted at the rear of the service module. These will be folded at launch and deployed once the spacecraft is in orbit. The photovoltaic arrays will provide electricity to storage batteries in the spacecraft. A completely independent battery set will provide emergency power in the event of a major power system failure.

In December 2007, NASA selected Boeing to develop the guidance system for the Orion spacecraft. Jeffrey Hanley, Constellation programme manager for NASA, told a press conference:

“Finally, with the last team in place, we can move on with the development of this new system… This last contract was a key piece that will now allow us to go to the preliminary design phase with a full team in the new year and begin to build and test this new system.’’

The new spacecraft is intended to return humans to the Moon, and then progress to Mars, but in the first instance it will be used for crew rotation on ISS. The first crewed flight to ISS is planned for no later than 2015. In comparison with the Shuttle, this new combination is estimated to be 10 times safer due to the in-line design of the stack, with the crewed spacecraft placed above the launch vehicle, rather than along­side it. The positioning of the Orion spacecraft, on top of a vertical launch vehicle, means that NASA can return to the use of the rocket-propelled Launch Abort System (LAS) to pull the crew module clear of a catastrophic launch vehicle failure during or

just prior to launch. The Orion LAS design is similar to that used for Apollo, with the Crew Module sitting beneath a Boost Protection Cover. In the event of a launch vehicle emergency just prior to launch, or during the Ares-I first-stage boost phase, the solid propellant rocket motor in the LAS would be fired to lift just the Crew Module to an altitude from which it could make a safe parachute recovery. At that point the LAS would be jettisoned and the crew module would descend under its own parachutes. In the event that the LAS was not required it would be jettisoned at the same time that the Ares-I first stage was jettisoned. In both scenarios the LAS will fall into the Atlantic Ocean and will not be recovered. In August 2007, wind tunnel testing of various LAS configurations showed that a Sear-Haack design provided considerable aerodynamic advantages over earlier designs. The LAS will be devel­oped by Orbital Sciences, while the solid propellant rocket motor for the escape rocket itself will be developed by Alliant Techsystems. In November 2007, the first boilerplate Orion spacecraft were being manufactured, for use during flight-tests of the LAS, which will be subjected to a series of pad abort and launch abort tests at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, starting in November 2008.

Orion was originally to be developed in three configurations.

• Block-1A: for low-Earth orbital flights.

• Block-IB: an uncrewed cargo vehicle (subsequently cancelled).

• Block 2: for crewed lunar flights.

As the Shuttle programme works towards its final flight, NASA has begun planning the changes to the Launch Complex 39 facilities that it uses at Cape Canaveral.

The Ares-I/Orion spacecraft combination will be stacked on the mobile launch platform inside the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB), just like Apollo and the Shuttle before it; that procedure will take place in High Bay I. Ares-I/Orion is 150 feet taller than the present Shuttle and will be accessed by folding work platforms similar to those used to access the Saturn/Apollo vehicles.

Apollo’s 3 Mobile Launch Platforms (MLPs) were re-configured to carry the Shuttle and will be reconfigured once more for the Ares launch vehicles. NASA is considering building a fourth MLP, so that two Ares-I and two Ares-V launch vehicles can be prepared at the same time. The new MLP design will include a Launch Umbilical Tower. The contract to design the Ares-1 MLP has been awarded to Reynolds, Smith & Hills Incorporated, a local company based in Merritt Island, Florida.

The two Apollo era Crawler Transporters that currently carry the Shuttle to the launchpad will continue in that role for the Ares launch vehicles. Although no additional work is required before the Crawler Transporter can carry the Ares-I to the launchpad, additional strengthening will be required in order to carry the Ares-V.

Launch Pad 39B will be converted to launch the Ares-I/Orion combination. Launch Pad 39A will be converted to launch the Ares-V. Work to convert Launch Complex 39, Pad B to take the Ares-I is planned to start in the spring of 2008. It will include removing the fixed and rotating service structures. A new launch tower will be constructed on the mobile launch platform, in a similar manner to that used for the Saturn/Apollo launch vehicle. Elevators and swing arms will give access to all areas of the Ares-I launch vehicle and the Orion spacecraft. The current emergency escape system, baskets sliding down a wire, will be replaced with a system that resembles a roller coaster, consisting of a car riding down a rail.

In the LaunchControl Centre next to the VAB, Firing Room 1 will be re-fitted to handle Ares-1 launches from Pad 39B. The room is presently vacant, but will be fitted with the ground support equipment required to support the preparation and launch of the Ares-I/Orion combination. The new vehicle is much simpler than the Shuttle, and therefore NASA is looking to use a smaller launch control team than 200 people required to launch a Shuttle.

The original Orion/Ares-I launch schedule was announced as

• April 2009: un-crewed Ares-1 four-segment SRB (inert fifth segment), dummy second stage, and ballast replacing the Orion spacecraft.

• October 2009: option to repeat of first flight if original fails.

• July 2012: un-crewed Ares-1 with five-segment SRB and live second stage.

• Late 2012: un-crewed flight of Ares-1 and Orion spacecraft.

• Fall 2014: un-crewed flight of Ares-1 and Orion Spacecraft.

• September 2014: first crewed flight of Ares-1 and Orion spacecraft.

When Project Constellation was announced, President Bush promised NASA a small annual budget increase to support the programme. Congress has failed to support that budget increase almost every year since then, with the exception of FY2007, when the budget request was actually increased by Congress. In late 2007, NASA announced that the first crewed Orion/Ares-1 launch had slipped into 2015 and all subsequent launches had been delayed accordingly.

As 2008 began, NASA announced that the first two Orion spacecraft to fly to ISS would each deliver a docking adapter, one of which would be left on PMA-2 on Harmony’s ram and the other on PMA-3 at Node-3’s nadir. One end of the adapter would provide for docking with the Russian-designed Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS) currently used to dock the Shuttle to ISS, while the other end would support the American-designed LIDS to be used by the Orion spacecraft. During docking with ISS the LIDS docking system would be used to mount the docking adapter at the apex of the conical Orion Crew Module. The exposed APAS docking system would then be used to dock to the relevant PMA. At undocking, the Orion spacecraft’s LIDS would be released, leaving the docking adapter mounted on the end of the PMA with its LIDS docking system exposed. Future Orion spacecraft would use their own LIDS docking systems to dock to the new adapters. The docking adapter has been named the APAS-To-LIDS Adapter System (ATLAS).

In May 2006, NASA officials and representatives of 13 other countries agreed 6 reasons that justified the Project Constellation effort to return human astronauts to the Moon. These are listed in the next section.

THE MOON’S PLACE IN A US-LED INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE TO EXPLORE THE SOLAR SYSTEM

1. A training ground for human and robotic exploration of Mars and more distant destinations.

2. Scientific studies that answer fundamental questions about the early history of the solar system and provide sites for astronomical observatories.

3. A place to acquire the technical skills to sustain a human presence on another world.

4. A growth point for the global economy.

5. A means to forge new global partnerships and strengthen old ones.

6. A source of inspiration.

NASA’s Deputy Administrator Shana Dale told the media:

“These are huge endeavours we are embarking upon. We have seen the benefits of collaboration on the International Space Station. As we move forward, we want to make sure we are working very collaboratively with both the international and the commercial sector… In the long run it makes for a much more sustainable program. This is definitely not just the United States doing this on its own.’’

America will continue to use ISS to concentrate its research on the reactions experienced by the human body to the unique environment of long-duration space­flight. At the same time America will seek partners for Project Constellation. The new spacecraft will initially serve as the principal American crew delivery and recovery vehicle for ISS. In time it would carry humans back to the Moon. Although Orion would remain in lunar orbit while a number of Altair Lunar Surface Access Modules were used to develop a permanent base on the lunar surface, the ISS experience would not be forgotten. No doubt new hardware will be tested on ISS, but ISS will also give back to Constellation. When the Moon base is established the astronauts working on the surface would be rotated on 6-month increments, just as ISS crews are today. Their wellbeing will be supported by the medical data that today’s astronauts are collecting on ISS. Their missions will be controlled using techniques developed by NASA and the Russians over decades of human spaceflight.