Recently in Orion Category

Credit: NASA

Lockheed Martin's Orion project team recently assembled a full-scale low fidelity Orion crew exploration vehicle module aft bay, subsystems mock-up in Johnson Space Center's space vehicle mockup facility, also known as building nine

NASA Johnson Space Center had had a requirement for "Lightweight Materials for the CEV Parachute Assembly System (CPAS)" that would be "developed, manufactured, and laboratory and flight tested" for use "in the skirt to shoulder region of the main canopies"


credit: NASA

This was so CPAS would meet the required "launch weight constraints" and parachute compartment volume but now NASA has decided to cancel that procurement

Hyperbola has obtained details of the work on NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle's proposed landing systems being carried out till 11 and 12 September when the CEV's Systems Baseline Review (SBR) occurs and its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) that takes place from 10 to 21 November


credit: NASA / caption: This old airbag system design has been rejected due to its mass penalty

I don't know how I missed this and doing lots of background research for this week's NASA/AIAA 3rd space exploration conference I only found one reference to it in Space Daily but on 30 January ILC Dover put out this statement about a NASA study for an Orion CEV airbag/floatation system

With one day to go before the 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch here is my pick of the newsy stuff from around the web...

As usual Hobbyspace.com has a plethora of links to various this, that and bits and bobs

NASASpaceflight.com has interesting details about Rocketplane Kistler and some alleged detail about changes to NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle

Chair Force Engineer considers this detail and I agree with some of what Chair Force says but take issue with other claims by Nasaspaceflight - more on that in a later post

ATK has put out a press release about a parachute test for Orion

JPL has a feature on Sputnik

Space.com is reporting on MIT developing a tether for astronauts to walk on asteroid

Spacedev has won a DARPA solar thermal propulsion contract

Find a photo report by Energia about preparations for the next manned Soyuz launch here.

Catch them while they're in your orbital plane

The LA Times has got an author and blogger Rand Simberg debating NASA for what its worth

If you have any bright ideas NASA would like to hear them about its future space suits

Spaceref.com is reporting that NASA has placed an order for its Orion launch abort system test launch pad

Aviation Week and Space Technology is reporting that China plans to have a lunar sample return mission. What? You mean like this one Flight has exclusive video of?