NASA Progressing Toward First Launch of Orion Spacecraft

Dec. 13, 2012

Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 12-435

NASA PROGRESSING TOWARD FIRST LAUNCH OF ORION SPACECRAFT

WASHINGTON -- Recent engineering advances by NASA and its industry
partners across the country show important progress toward
Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), the next step to launching humans
to deep space. The uncrewed EFT-1 mission, launching from NASA's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2014, will test the re-entry
performance of the agency's Orion capsule, the most advanced
spacecraft ever designed, which will carry astronauts farther into
space than ever before.

"These recent milestones are laying the foundation for our first
flight test of Orion in 2014," said Dan Dumbacher, deputy associate
administrator for exploration systems development at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "The work being done to prepare for the
flight test is really a nationwide effort and we have a dedicated
team committed to our goal of expanding the frontier of space."

A tool that will allow the titanium skeleton of the Orion heat shield
to be bolted to its carbon fiber skin is at the Denver facility of
the spacecraft's prime contractor Lockheed Martin. This will enable
workers to begin assembling the two pieces of the heat shield. Almost
3,000 bolts are needed to hold the skeleton to the skin. A special
stand was built to align the skin on the skeleton as holes for the
bolts are drilled. Work to bolt the skeleton to the skin will be
completed in January. The heat shield then will be shipped to Textron
Defense Systems near Boston where the final layer, an ablative
material very similar to that used on the Apollo spacecraft, will be
added. The completed heat shield is scheduled to be ready for
installation onto the Orion crew module at Kennedy next summer.

To test the heat shield during EFT-1's re-entry, Orion will travel
more than 3,600 miles above Earth's surface, 15 times farther than
the International Space Station's orbital position. This is farther
than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has gone in more than 40
years. Orion will return home at a speed almost 5,000 mph faster than
any current human spacecraft.

This week, engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala., received materials to begin manufacturing the
adapter that will connect the Orion capsule to a United Launch
Alliance Delta IV heavy-lift rocket for EFT-1. Two forward and two
aft rings will be welded to barrel panels to form two adapters. This
adapter design will be tested during EFT-1 for use during the first
launch of NASA's next heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System
(SLS), in 2017. SLS will launch NASA's Orion spacecraft and other
payloads beyond low Earth orbit, providing an entirely new capability
for human exploration.

Data from the adapter on the flight test will provide Marshall
engineers with invaluable experience developing hardware early in the
design process. Designing the adapter once for multiple flights also
provides a cost savings.

Of the two adapters welded at Marshall, one will attach Orion to the
Delta IV heavy-lift rocket used for EFT-1. The other adapter will be
a structural test article to gain knowledge on the design.

NASA's Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program also
has passed a major agency review that lays the groundwork at Kennedy
to support future Orion and SLS launches. The GSDO Program completed
a combined system requirements review and system definition review,
in which an independent board of technical experts from across NASA
evaluated the program's infrastructure specifications, budget and
schedule. The board confirmed GSDO is ready to move from concept
development to preliminary design. The combination of the two
assessments represents a fundamentally different way of conducting
NASA program reviews. The team is streamlining processes to provide
the nation with a safe, affordable and sustainable launch facility.

The GSDO program last week also led the third Stationary Recovery Test
Working Group session in Norfolk, Va. The team presented to the U.S.
Navy detachment that will recover the capsule during EFT-1 a complete
list of tasks required to accomplish stationary recovery test
objectives. The working group outlined the plan for roles and
responsibilities to accomplish required test procedures. Included in
these presentations were the commanding officer of the USS Mesa Verde
and the fleet forces command director of operations, who both
expressed complete support for the test.

For more information about NASA's exploration programs:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration


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