Recently in Orion Category

Below and in the extended portion of this blog post are my notes from a telecon I had with a Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration project manager in mid-2009. The bizarre situation was that I was at the Colorado Convention Center and Lockheed Martin Space Systems is only a car journey away but I couldn't get a rental car to get myself there (something was happening that meant all the rentals in and around Denver were taken) and the aerospace prime didn't seem too enthusiastic to come get me

I had planned to write the interview up at the time but events got in the way and despite repeated attempts since to get an interview with Lockheed to update this information and write a feature or lengthy blog nothing came of any of it

In the months since that telecon we have had news about the Orion heat shield being made by Lockheed, the choice of lithium aluminum supplier has been made with Rio Tinto Alcan annuoncing its selection and there have been Aerojet engine tests and ATK's Orion launch abort system attitude control motor tests; and one company called G Systems has made public the fact that it has delivered its test stations to the Michoud Assembly Facility for Orion. Next month I think there is an Orion pad abort test too

Anyway, last year I began to write "After a 10-month delay to its preliminary design review NASA has spent over $3 billion on its Orion crew exploration vehicle," and below are my notes

International Space Station (ISS) is higher inclination [than lunar orbit], requires more launch vehicles performance but the spacecraft is [now] lighter

Can carry 3,500lb more cargo to ISS with four crew

Four crew is now the baseline but requirements for that have not been spread through out Constellation

Amount of [crew] consumables didn't change very much [with crew reduction]

We have always kept the waste management system

[Astronaut corp] Crew has been very involved from the beginning

"Driving all the systems to an optimal path, we need enough time to check out the vehice before we fly"

Fan motors have a two year lead time

Putting together different options for Orion and its service module (SM), 17,500lb propellant for lunar, 8,000lb for ISS, SM can be used as a space tug, this could have 16,000lb

we are at 606G design for PDR and after next two cycles get to 606H

21 August have PDR board that lasts for a couple of days

credit: NASA / caption: plenty has been done and there is plenty more for Constellation

When this blogger saw the headline of this 30 March article by Aviation Week's senior space editor Frank Morring it seemed that the "program of record" that dare not speak its name had finally broken cover and spoken to the media after a self imposed vow of silence

But alas no, even Aviation Week's article had no detail on what was going on with Constellation and so there was still everything to play for, time to hit the phones and email - again

Now, by way of leaked emails, it seems that Constellation's management are preparing for any eventuality

But way back at the beginning on the 1 February the newly published fiscal year 2011 (1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011) budget request for NASA had notably continued funding the Moon return Constellation programme until 2012, even if it was cancelled this year

This blogger decided that whatever anyone thought of the programme's merit it was worth giving the space agency a call. A call to find out how the Ares and Orion and lunar surface systems project offices were planning to spend in FY2010 and FY2011 the $8 billion odd budgeted for for Constellation

The Orion crew exploration vehicle looks set to return not only as an escape capsule but also as a beyond low Earth orbit spacecraft according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden

In today's Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing Bolden said that Orion would become a programme of incremental improvement to realise a spacecraft that can conduct missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO)

On 1 February this year Orion was effectively cancelled by president Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 (starting 1 October 2010) NASA budget and then on 15 April Obama declared that the Lockheed Martin developed spacecraft would be an escape capsule. But Obama's plan for NASA also envisages human missions beyond the Moon to asteroids and Mars

Now Bolden appears to have given back to Orion the mission it was to have originally, going beyond LEO

Bolden also indicated that he expected Orion to be able to begin operation as an escape capsule in three years, long before any commercial provider. He said he saw the likes of Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Dragon capsule as a longer term but cheaper prospect

This would seem to be a blow to the hopes of those companies planning to be a part of NASA's $6 billion commercial crew programme. In particular SpaceX which has stated it could deliver an ISS crew transport vehicle three years after being given the go-ahead

credit: spacepolicyonline.com / caption: the schedule slide that will come to haunt Obama's flexible path

In a president George W. Bush-like moment NASA administrator Charles Bolden is reported to have said: "it is the uneasiest thing we could do". Uneasiest? Don't you mean it is one of the hardest things you could do?

And Bolden might not want to admit it but his allegedly executable non-Constellation programme is ultimately, in capabilities terms, just as challenging and probably unexecutable as Bush's Constellation in technology and funding 

Why? We now know that president Barack Obama's plan for NASA is to work towards a 2025 asteroid rendezvous and a mid-2030s Mars mission that would not land. Constellation had Mars as an aspiration but its goal was to begin Moon missions from 2018 with a landing soon after and the slow build up of a permanent lunar base from the early 2020s

Surely they are very different? Look again

Despite the grandiose visit to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) president Barack Obama's space plan is still being divisive even with the announcements of a 2025 asteroid goal and a 2035 mission to orbit, but not land on, Mars



In the video above Buzz Aldrin says he wish he could have spoken to his ex-Apollo astronaut colleagues before they sent a letter condemning Obama's plan

Florida Today lists a series of reactions from notable people here, as does NASAWatch with its report here; qouting media organisations including Time magazine and Fox News. Below SpaceX's founder Elon Musk tells Bloomberg tv NASA's Constellation programme was uneconomic. Here the Orlando Sentinel reports that Musk spoke to Obama during his KSC visit. You can find here Musk's long statement endorsing Obama's plan 



While Utah Senator Orrin Hatch continues to take issue with the Obama plan. Hatch met with NASA administrator Charles Bolden and was not at all happy with the outcome

Watch part of president Barack Obama's speech in the video above. For the second and third parts of this speech go here and here. For more coverage of Obama's visit to Kennedy Space Center yesterday see below and in the extended portion of this blog post. Find here NASA's special web page about Obama's visit and watch here the agency's video of his speech

MSNBC video

CNN video

Sky.com video

Go here for a video report about the Apollo astronauts who oppose Obama's plan and this report highlights a 200-person protest (apparently tea party linked) held near to the Center

One has to wonder what on Earth (pun intended) president Barack Obama, his administration and the NASA management team think will be accomplished with a 1h 55min chin wag between "senior officials, space leaders, academic experts, industry leaders and others" about the future of US space exploration

Public relations disaster is one accomplishment that this blogger can envisage. If everyone comes out of the conference (see timing below - all times in Eastern Daylight Time) declaring the Obama plan a fantastic vision the event will be criticised as a White House whitewash and if a single individual speaks out against it, the reports will be of a divided conference

Hyperbola suspects the outcome will be far far worse

We are told Obama will have some "private time" with politicians attending the event. Anything other than the president's ageement to a wish list of space transportation projects is going to see those politicians attack the new space plan. And it won't stop there, academics will likely go on the record to say they don't agree with all or parts of the plan while industry will simply brief journalists, off the record, about why the plan doesn't make sense 

It is not obvious at what point the media get to question the president and, or his conference participants but I would imagine that certain politicians and corporations are already on the phone to Florida based and national media. Is it a conference or is it Obama's last space stand?

The afternoon to save exploration in full

13:30h NASA tv begins President Barack Obama KSC visit coverage
14:25h President Obama speech in Operations & Checkout building
15:45h Conference overview
           with NASA admininstrator Charles Bolden, Norman Augustine, John Holdren
16:25h Conference breakout sessions
           - increasing access to and utilization of the International Space Station
           - jumpstarting the new technologies to take us beyond
           - expanding our reach into the Solar System
           - harnessing space to expand economic opportunity
17:40h Conference wrap-up with Bolden and breakout session moderators

The 15:45h conference overview and 16:25h breakout sessions will all take place in the Operations & Checkout building

Reading about president Barack Obama's decision to resurrect the Orion crew exploration vehicle as an escape capsule we are told (here and then here and in plenty of other articles) that this will reduce NASA's dependence upon Russian crew transport services

This could not be more wrong. Russia has been providing all International Space Station (ISS) crew rotation flghts since STS-129, the last Shuttle flight to do that job in November last year

The ISS has six crew (yes Expedition 22 had only five crew) and for that Russia is providing four three-crew Energia Soyuz TMA spacecraft a year

Orion Lite will not launch crew, it launches unmanned for an automatic rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station and then sits there, but until when?

It is not needed for an emergency return. Soyuz have been docked to the station for the emergency return role ever since station has been inhabited. So Orion Lite is not reducing Russian flights to the station and it is simply not needed for the escape role

Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby has not welcomed president Barack Obama's new version of his flexible space exploration path plan and appears to take a swipe at NASA administrator Charles Bolden with the reference to the agency's "management team" - unless its more NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver bashing. Bolden's deputy has been blamed as the primary author of the hated Plan A in earlier Congresional hearings. Will Garver get more Witch Finder General treatment at the hands of Congress? The next hearing is scheduled for 22 April 

"The President's new plan unmistakably shows that NASA's management team does not understand the issues at stake. While the Administration may have finally realized that its initial budget request was a complete disaster, the new plan, from the same team, still ends human space flight. This new plan does not represent an advancement in policy or an improvement upon the Constellation program, but a continued abdication of America's leadership in space. NASA's objective is to let so-called private industry develop with taxpayer money a launch vehicle for humans, yet NASA's current commercial providers today cannot lift an ounce of cargo to the space station. The plan does nothing to reduce our reliance on the Russians well into the next decade. There is no rocket or capsule being built through this plan that can safely carry humans to space. The President commits to building a heavy lift vehicle five years from now, at which point he may very well no longer be in office. It extends the International Space Station's life by five years, yet we will have no way to reach it on our own. The President has replaced one visionless plan with another. It is clear that the Administration does not believe that American leadership in human space flight is a priority worth fighting for."

According to the above video in 1976 Goddard Space Flight Center was a "kaleidoscope of extremes". Is that still so Goddard workers of today? Hyperbola wants to know. But more importantly this video was about the center's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first liquid rocket engine flight, care of its name sake Robert H. Goddard. I think 1976 was the 200th anniversary of some historically significant event as well but for the life of me my British mind can't recall what it was...

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight and space.com's report about Bolden's speech at the 26th National Space Symposium doesn't really provide any sort of idea of what NASA 2011 will be like. It's not space.com's fault but Bolden said so little, making one wonder why he even bothered to add to his carbon footprint and hot foot it all the way to Colorado for a morning chit-chat

While in the Sunshine state we have learnt today, care of the Orlando Sentinel, that Obama will now not check out the X-37 during his visit. As if making a speech about a plan that cancels a vehicle whose building your standing in at the time isn't ironic enough, standing by the Space Shuttle look-a-likey X-37 might just be a bit too much for anyone

If you're a young American looking for a vibrant space programme perhaps India is the place to go? According to Aviation Week the Indians are just getting on with it, it being a manned space programme. And Bangalore owes the USA a few jobs...