Orion Medical Blog

NASA has selected proposals for future lunar science activities and established two new programs that will enhance research made possible by the Vision for Space Exploration.

The proposals and programs are part of an effort by NASA to develop new opportunities to conduct important science investigations during the planned renewal of human exploration of the moon.

In a highly competitive selection, NASA chose seven proposals from more than 70 submissions under the Lunar Sortie Science Opportunities (LSSO) Program. These newly funded efforts in the space science community will complement two new programs established in the Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington: the Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research (LASER) Program and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Participating Scientist Program.  Read more

Textron Defense Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems Corporation, a Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) company, announced that it has been awarded a $24 million contract, which includes all options, by the NASA Ames Research Center to develop alternate heat shield materials for the Orion crew exploration spacecraft. Awarded on May 4, 2007, this contract will support further development and testing of heat shield materials, designs, and manufacturing processes for Alternate Block 2 Thermal Protection System (TPS) Materials and Heat Shield Systems Advanced Development.

This effort is a part of the NASA Constellation Program that is developing Orion as America’s primary vehicle for future human space exploration. Orion will carry astronauts to the International Space Station by 2015, with a goal of landing astronauts on the moon no later than 2020. The Orion TPS Advanced Development Project, led by the Ames Research Center from Moffett Field, California, was established to develop a heat shield to protect Orion during its return from low-Earth orbit or the moon.   Read more

NASA has authorized a contract with a maximum value of $16.7 million with Alcoa North American Rolled Products of Bettendorf, Iowa, to supply aluminum lithium plates and metal ingots for early development of the Ares I crew launch vehicles upper stage. The firm fixed-price contract has a period of performance through Aug. 5, 2008.

Ares I is an in-line, two-stage rocket that will transport to low Earth orbit the Orion crew exploration vehicle containing up to six astronauts. The first stage will consist of a single reusable solid rocket booster similar to those used on the space shuttle, with an additional fifth segment. The second, or upper, stage will consist of a J-2X main engine fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

Before NASA’s new spacecraft, Orion, carries the next generation of explorers into space, it first will make a shorter journey to the world’s largest vacuum chamber. In this massive, cathedral-like structure, it must endure a variety of rigorous challenges.

Called the Space Power Facility, the vacuum chamber resides at NASA Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. It measures 100 feet in diameter and towers at 122 feet tall. Its immense size and ability to simulate the vacuum of space make it ideal for testing the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

On June 11, the facility opened its doors for a rededication ceremony. Agency managers, community stakeholders and elected officials gathered to celebrate the role this facility will play in the country’s next phase of space exploration.  Read more

This journey begins soon with the development of a new spaceship. Building on the best of Apollo and shuttle technology, NASA is creating a 21st century exploration system that will be affordable, reliable, versatile and safe.

The centerpiece of the system is a new spacecraft named Orion that is designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, to support up to six crewmembers on future missions to Mars and to deliver crew and supplies to the International Space Station.

Orion will be shaped like an Apollo capsule but will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time.  Read more

The first round of the expected fight between congressional supporters of NASA’s space exploration programs and the advocates of more terrestrially focused efforts was won easily by the earth science enthusiasts. But the upcoming rounds might get a bit tougher.

Cuts in manned space activities in the omnibus fiscal 2007 appropriations continuing resolution and recent complaints by leading Democrats about reduced funding for earth science and global warming research in President Bush’s fiscal 2008 budget have led manned space supporters to express their concerns about the fate of Bush’s 2004 “vision” for space exploration.

Those concerns appeared to be justified by the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee’s approval of its $53.6 billion funding bill last week.  Read more

Applied Aerospace Structures in Stockton has been awarded a contract by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., to manufacture sections of a launch abort system for NASA’s planned Orion space vehicle.

The Orion will succeed the space shuttle as the vehicle to take people to the international space station, the moon, and eventually, Mars. Applied Aerospace will provide several of the major components that will allow the crew capsule to safely eject from the launching rocket below in case of an emergency.

The abort system basically amounts to a rocket atop a launching rocket. The system will be able to blast astronauts in their space craft to safety in an emergency. The emergency launch is so powerful, moving the capsule and abort system from zero to 800 miles per hour in three seconds, that crew members would black out temporarily from a force 15 times that of gravity.  Read more

Trips into outer space have become so common that the public hardly pays attention. But a 4-by-6-inch hole created in space shuttle Atlantis’ thermal blanket during Friday’s launch has prompted some to take notice.

It’s a stark reminder that NASA is dealing with an aging fleet of vehicles that need to be upgraded for the 21st century.

It’s been only four years since Columbia disintegrated on re-entry after damage to its thermal protection system led to structural failure in the shuttle’s left wing. Seven astronauts were lost. NASA has flown four successful missions since.  Read more

Pictures of Plum Brook Testing Center where NASA will test Orion.  View pictures

NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin said Friday that he regretted having sparked a furor last week when, in an interview with National Public Radio, he said he was not sure climate change“is a problem we must wrestle with.”

“To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate,” he said during the NPR interview, stumbling into the rancorous debate over climate change.

Among his own troops, James Hansen, who manages NASA’s climate research as the head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and who has said that the Bush administration has told him to soften his comments about warming, said he was shocked by the comments.   Read more