NASA Orion Spaceship Blog

Aerojet, a GenCorp company, announced today its recent selection by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to provide developmental engines for the Ares I crew launch vehicle first stage roll control system. These engines are the first in a series of steps to develop the roll control system to ensure that Ares I stays on its designated trajectory throughout the first two minutes of flight. The engines being developed by Aerojet under this contract will be used to mature the roll control system planned for the Ares I test program. Aerojet has selected Moog Inc. of Buffalo, NY, as the supplier to design the propellant valve for the engine.   Read more

Using the design from roller coaster amusement parks, NASA officials announced that a roller coaster type escape system may be built to quickly drive astronauts off the launch pad during the new Orion/Ares I space missions.

The next generation spacecraft for the U.S. manned space program is called Orion. The Orion fleet will replace the Space Shuttles in 2015, after the Shuttle fleet (Atlantis, Endeavour, and Discovery) is retired in 2010. The launch pad for the Ares I rocket, which will power the Orion spacecraft to orbit, will be from Launch Complex 39B.   Read more

NASA’s road back to the Moon and onward to Mars is not only technologically challenging but it may also be a proposition that could fall short due to lack of needed funding.

As kick-started by President George Bush in January 2004, NASA’s vision of extending the human touch beyond low Earth orbit is being subjected to lack of both White House and Congressional budget support.

That’s the view from Congressman Nick Lampson of Texas’ 22nd Congressional District that represents NASA’s Johhnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.   Read more

NASA plans to use a powerful rocket to get astronauts on its new spaceship to safety if an emergency forces the mission to be aborted as the vehicle heads to orbit.

A computer system at Mission Control would be able to fire a rocket that would hurl the crew capsule out of harm’s way, says Greg Stover, NASA’s launch-abort system manager. The last U.S. spacecraft to boast such a system was the Apollo, which carried man to the moon.  Read more

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has concluded a six-month review of system requirements for its Constellation program.

The Constellation project — including the Orion spacecraft, the Ares launch vehicles and other support systems — involves development of a new space transportation system that will take astronauts to Earth’s orbit, the moon, and eventually Mars.

NASA said the project’s basic design, development, construction and operation architecture remains unchanged, but it now has a firmer foundation built through extensive analyses and validation testing.   Read more

NASA’s Space Shuttle Program successfully fired a reusable solid rocket motor Thursday, May 24, at a Utah test facility. The two-minute test provided important information for continued shuttle launches and for development of the rocket that will carry the next human spacecraft to the moon.

The static firing of the full-scale, full-duration flight support motor was performed at 1 p.m. MDT at ATK Launch Systems Group, a unit of Alliant Techsystems Inc. in Promontory, Utah, where the shuttle’s solid rocket motors are manufactured. Read more

NASA this week wrapped up six months of system requirements reviews for the Orion spacecraft, the Ares launch vehicles and other support systems, bringing together the Constellation Program’s list of basic capability needs.

The Constellation Program is developing a new space transportation system that will take astronauts to Earth orbit, the moon, and eventually to Mars.

The basic program architecture for design, development, construction and operation of the rockets and spacecraft remains unchanged as a result of the reviews, but it now has a firmer foundation built through extensive requirements allocation, reconciliation, analyses and validation testing.  Read more

NASA is adding a docking ring to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just in case a visit by astronauts aboard a future Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is needed to complete deployment of the multibillion-dollar orbiting observatory. The U.S. space agency made the announcement May 10 during the unveiling of a full-scale model of the JWST on the National Mall here.

Billed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST is slated to launch in mid-2013. By the time it is fully expanded as it is deployed at a gravitationally stable spot some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, the spacecraft will be about the length of a tennis court. Building, launching and operating the infrared telescope for 10 years is expected to cost $4.5 billion, making it the most expensive science mission NASA has in development.  Read more

NASA has decided to load the Orion crew launch vehicle with its hypergolic fuels before it reaches the pad and before it reaches the Kennedy Space Center’s vehicle assembly building for stacking on to the Ares I crew launch vehicle. The decision could pose safety challenges during ground processing.

Hypergolics are fuels and oxidisers that remain liquid at room temperatures and pressures and ignite on contact, requiring no ignition source. But they are toxic and require special handling. Common hypergolic fuels are hydrazine, monomethyl hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine. The oxidiser is usually nitrogen tetroxide or inhibited red-fuming nitric acid.  Read more

Six aquanauts returned to the surface of the Earth Friday after 12 days of mock moonwalks and robotic surgery experiments on the Atlantic Ocean floor.

The joint team of NASA astronauts, surgeons and professional divers completed a successful expedition to the Aquarius undersea laboratory, which rests more than 62 feet (18 meters) below the ocean’s surface off the coast of Key Largo in the Florida Keys.

“I think we’ve had a very full mission…we worked really hard, but we really enjoyed it,” U.S. astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, commander of the NASA Extreme Environmental Mission Operations (NEEMO) 12 team, told SPACE.com before leaving the undersea laboratory. “I know I will be looking forward to some sunshine, and also it’ll be nice to have some fresh food.”  Read more