Orion (CEV / SM) - status

GCNRevenger · 2006-12-30 17:14:47

And that airlock... make it the crew cabin for the LSAM.

cIclops · 2007-01-15 04:47:09

More news about the future LO2/LCH4 engine (replaces previous post)

XCOR XR-5M15 LOX / methane engine and new test stand

XCOR Aerospace Begins Test Firing of Methane Rocket Engine

Mojave, CA. January 16, 2007 – Today XCOR Aerospace announced a series of successful test firings of its new 7,500 pound thrust rocket engine. The tests were conducted as part of a $3.3 million subcontract XCOR has with Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK). The tests support NASA’s advanced development program to obtain liquid methane rocket engine technology for future space applications. Six short-duration test fires have been completed.
The engine, designated 5M15, uses liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellants. XCOR and ATK are developing the initial workhorse version of the 7,500 lbf LOX/methane engine for NASA. This regeneratively-cooled version of the rocket engine will also be built and tested in 2007 as part of the contract. ATK will use the workhorse engine as a basis for the design of the prototype version of the engine that will be closer to flight weight.
“This was a great first firing,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “Everything worked incredibly well. The crew put in long days and nights to get the engine and new test stand ready for today, and the results were outstanding. I could not have expected it to come out any better.”
The first version of this rocket engine uses a heat-sink throat without any cooling system. Tests on this first version of the engine will characterize engine performance. The results will be used to determine the appropriate length of the rocket engine chamber for the flight-weight version.

Note that this engine has exactly the thrust required by the Orion SM propulsion system (7500 lbs)

cIclops · 2007-01-16 11:00:11

Ripped from the latest factsheet (PDF - 9 Jan 2007)

SpaceNut · 2007-01-16 13:32:45

cIclops I am glad that ATK and Xcor have continued on the research for methane powered engines.

Note that this engine has exactly the thrust required by the Orion SM propulsion system (7500 lbs)

Not to mention it would be able to be used on the LSAM for moon missions and later for Mars...

cIclops · 2007-01-16 14:27:29

Indeed. The new engine has a long way to go, it has to be ultra reliable for the LSAM. Once proven for the LSAM then it will be ideal for Mars missions as CH4 can be produced from the Martian atmosphere and H2O.

RedStreak · 2007-01-16 16:23:09

I agree. Even if its not used on Orion or LSAM it has applications - hell in the farther future a distant cousin of this engine might be finding Titan to be a paradise in methane.

Its great we've got a potential Martian engine that runs. Now we need Martian propellant production to get both the horse and carriage.

cIclops · 2007-01-18 09:17:55

(from SpaceNut)

Stockton aerospace firm wins NASA Orion contract has been selected as one of the earliest subcontractors on Lockheed Martin's new space capsule for the Orion project.

The company's contract is for construction of part of the launch abort system, a nose cone above the four- to six-person crew module that will be capable of pulling the spacecraft and its crew to safety in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or at any time during ascent up to 300,000 feet, or roughly 60 miles, according to NASA and Applied Aerospace.

Applied Aerospace Structures Corp

cIclops · 2007-01-19 01:19:11

Current configuration - ripped from the latest factsheet (PDF - 9 Jan 2007)

cIclops · 2007-01-26 02:56:25

Ripped from EMSD Charts 25 Jan 2007 (PDF from NASA WATCH)

SpaceNut · 2007-01-27 12:03:44

This one has reference to the Ares 1, 5 and of Orion testing as well as what could be deemed Ares IV, so I will add this to all. NASA Studies Early Moon Shot for New Space Capsule

Scott Horowitz, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems, said he asked engineers at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to study a rocket design that would combine the Ares 5 main stage with the Ares 1 upper stage to permit an around-the-Moon-and-back shakeout flight of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle [image] several years ahead of the first lunar landings.

With a fully tested upper stage in the area of 2012 with the orion being check out for 2015 all in prepration for the 2018 target dates for moon landings...

This also gets you a new SM for the moon and possibly into the next block capsule as well.

cIclops · 2007-01-28 08:35:58

With a fully tested upper stage in the area of 2012 with the orion being check out for 2015 all in prepration for the 2018 target dates for moon landings...
This also gets you a new SM for the moon and possibly into the next block capsule as well.

The original timetable as set out in the VSE was for a moon landing as early as 2015. It could still be done given the money. Come on Congress, let's get this show really moving!

SpaceNut · 2007-01-30 12:02:57

The ball has started to roll..
LOCKHEED MARTIN READIES FOR ORION CREW EXPLORATION VEHICLE AT NASA'S KENNEDY SPACE CENTER

Modifications to the O&C Building will be needed to prepare it for the Orion program. Lockheed Martin will begin those modifications in April 2007 and will be completed in November 2008.
Changes will include retrofitting of the existing Altitude Chamber to create a Thermal Vacuum Chamber for combined environment testing of Orion. Utilities such as power, nitrogen, housekeeping vacuum, compressed air and imagery cameras will be installed to support nine new Orion specific workstations.
Included in outfitting those new workstations will be three new modular clean areas to provide a 100,000 class clean room environment, as well as creation and outfitting of a Refurbishment Area to support post-flight processing of the crew module for re-use. In addition, a dedicated Lockheed Martin Intranet (LMI) will be installed to perform secured data/information transmission.

cIclops · 2007-01-31 06:25:09

Orion to serve as ferry to orbital outpost through 2020

MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 10:02 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2007
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA wants to keep supplying the international space station with its successor to the space shuttle until 2020 — four years longer than previously planned, the manager of the space agency's exploration program said Tuesday.
NASA's timetable calls for retiring the space shuttle fleet in 2010, then relying on its international partners or commercial services for space station resupply in the 2010-2014 time frame. In the meantime, the agency would develop and build a capsule-type spacecraft dubbed the Orion, designed primarily for lunar exploration.
In the past, NASA has said the Orion could be used to ferry crews, supplies and equipment between Earth and the space station until 2016. After that time, the Orion would have been reserved for missions leading up to a moon landing by 2020, and NASA would rely on others to provide station resupply services.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement
That was the original plan. But the arrangement led some of NASA's international partners to wonder whether the United States would stay committed to space station operations after 2016 — and on Tuesday, Jeff Hanley, program manager for NASA's exploration program, said the original plan has been changed.
"The supposition previously had been that station flights (by Orion vehicles) would end in 2016," said Jeff Hanley, program manager for NASA's new exploration initiative. "That's not the guidance we're being given now."
Instead, NASA wants to ensure Orion vehicles can make at least two missions to the space station per year through 2020, he said. "That may be crew rotations going to station, that could be servicing missions to the station with specialized crews to go up and do special work. We don't know. But we think it's a reasonable frequency of flying and production to base our budgets on at this point in the program," Hanley said in an interview.
Hanley was at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to mark the transfer of a historic Apollo-era building to the Orion program for spacecraft assembly and testing. Last year, Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract for Orion, and the company will be in charge of refurbishing the Operations & Checkout Building for its new role.

GCNRevenger · 2007-02-01 17:41:19

Or is it because the Russians want to use ISS as a space hotel to prop up their space program, and NASA will be legally obligated to help them keep it flying?

cIclops · 2007-02-02 01:34:22

Or is it because the Russians want to use ISS as a space hotel to prop up their space program, and NASA will be legally obligated to help them keep it flying?

No.

SpaceNut · 2007-02-02 07:10:22

This is a smoke an mirrors for congress in hopes to get them to continue to fund correctly the Orion program. Remember it is congress that wants to use ISS.

cIclops · 2007-02-06 05:08:29

Update from the 2008 Budget request document (PDF 4.2MB)

Budget (2006-2012) $ millions

2006 ..... 839.2
2007 .. 1,001.1
2008 ..... 950.8
2009 .. 1,425.0
2010 .. 1,211.7
2011 .. 1,551.0
2012 .. 1,125.1
------ ... --------
Total .. 8,103.9

Review Schedule:
System Design Review ............ April 2007
Preliminary Design Review ...... March 2008
Critical Design Review ............ April 2009

Project Risk Management:
o Orion Weight
o Launch Abort System

SpaceNut · 2007-02-09 07:13:06

Nice image in the article and great if it does reduce Orions mass but please no deals...

NASA Evaluates Improved Radiators For Orion

NASA and the space community at large are continually seeking improvements to spacecraft heat rejection technology. A route to improved performance is through the use of lighter, better heat conducting materials. Radiators used in space heat rejection systems are frequently constructed of aluminum due to its reasonable thermal conductivity, low density, low cost, and ease of manufacturing.
Examples of materials with the potential to improve radiator performance include beryllium and it alloys, carbon-carbon, pyrolytic graphite, copper-graphite, and carbon fiber PMC (polymer matrix composite).

SpaceNut · 2007-02-14 18:27:00

To go with cIclops earlier post on the LAS

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums … ntid=17479

cIclops · 2007-02-19 05:48:02

Illuminated temperature sensitive paint coating on an Orion wind tunnel model

Arnold teams provide NASA with test data

by Philip Lorenz III
Arnold Engineering Development Center
2/2/2007 - ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. (AFNEWS) -- Two teams at the Engineering Development Center's Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 here were recently involved in tests for NASA's next crew exploration vehicle.
One team made use of conventional and advanced measurement techniques during the NASA-sponsored aerothermal testing on a scale model of the space agency's new Orion, the projected spacecraft that will send a new generation of explorers to the moon.
Orion is part of the Constellation Program to send human explorers to other destinations in the solar system. Orion is scheduled to make a manned mission no later than 2014 as the follow-on to the space shuttle, due to be retired in 2010.
The test objective was to obtain heating data over the model's surface at Mach 8 and 10 freestream conditions.
Unlike the development of the Apollo capsule, where the database was populated entirely using experimental data, the Orion database is being developed using advanced computational fluid dynamic techniques. The experimental data will be used to validate the computational fluid dynamic models for NASA's Orion database development.
The facility's unique high Mach number and high pressure capabilities allowed NASA to obtain data on the vehicle, "which they were not able to obtain in any other facility," said Joe Coblish, the project group team leader at Tunnel 9.
A second Tunnel 9 team provided support by pushing the use of temperature sensitive paint, or TSP, to its limits during the project's final phase. The goal was to further develop and demonstrate TSP's effectiveness and viability to collect test data in Tunnel 9's unique high-temperature and high-pressure hypersonic environment.
TSP is a system that includes a special paint, an ultra-violet illumination source and a sensitive-charge coupled-device camera to obtain surface temperature data. The paint is applied to the model in two layers -- a white undercoat and the TSP layer. The white undercoat provides a uniform reflective surface for the TSP. The illumination source excites the TSP layer, which fluoresces a bright red color with its intensity inversely proportional to the surface temperature on the model.
"TSP allows us to use what is described as a global mapping technique to get the desired parameter -- heat transfer in this case -- from the entire surface of the test article," said Joe Norris, Aerospace Testing Alliance's TSP developmental lead at Tunnel 9. "It's effectively like acquiring data from tens of thousands of thermocouples."
The team at Tunnel 9 had to deal with some technical challenges not experienced at other facilities working with TSP and Pressure Sensitive Paint, Mr. Norris said.
"Tunnel 9's unique combination of relatively short run times and high heating rates presents challenges that are unique in the world of TSP/PSP," he said. "High-quality, high-output, stable illumination fields are needed to combine with high-end, scientific-grade cameras to take images at frame rates fast enough to calculate heat transfer."

cIclops · 2007-02-28 15:18:33

On NASA TV today during a Senate space committee hearing, Mike Griffin said that the Iniitial Operating Capability (IOC) of Orion would be NET Dec 2014.

Chairman Bill Nelson responded by requesting NASA to provide funding estimates to bring IOC forward to 2012.

GCNRevenger · 2007-02-28 18:00:00

It makes me ill that Congress is too stupid and thick-headed to realize much of NASA's money has to go to propping up Shuttle/ISS, and whats left over goes to VSE. Cutting some millions off the budget is a huge change to the VSE budget irrespective of the size of Shuttle/ISS funds.

SpaceNut · 2007-02-28 18:08:45

Griffin has said that flat budgetting of 2007 has had an impact of 4 to 6 months on Ares I orion developement.

Budget crunch to delay NASA's new moon ship

The craft, called the Orion, won't fly until early 2015, four to six months later than planned, NASA administrator Michael Griffin told lawmakers.
"We simply do not have the money available" to fly in 2014 as originally planned, he said.

cIclops · 2007-03-01 02:54:09

Aerojet tests next generation safety capability

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 27, 2007 -- Aerojet, a GenCorp, Inc. (NYSE: GY) company and a core propulsion provider for NASA’s new space exploration vehicle, Orion, recently conducted an internally-funded static firing of a key Launch Abort System component.
Orion’s Launch Abort System is a new capability that will allow the astronaut crew to safely escape in the event of an emergency during launch. Aerojet’s test of an abort motor reverse flow nozzle increases the technical readiness of the Launch Abort System concept.
The near full-scale reverse flow nozzle test demonstrated the nozzle performance needed to ensure successful implementation of the Launch Abort System. Aerojet's design incorporates a clean-burning solid propellant designed to minimize contamination of other parts of the rocket.
“The recent successful test of this capability positions Aerojet as a potential supplier for this technically challenging product,” says Aerojet vice president of Business Development, Rick Yezzi. “This accelerated, four-month effort to design, fabricate, and conduct a high-fidelity static firing has demonstrated that the performance objectives of the Launch Abort System tractor motor can be achieved.”

cIclops · 2007-03-05 07:14:03

Guidance, Navigation & Control (GN&C) Reference Architecture - 1MB PDF

The reference GN&C architecture summarized in this document addresses the driving requirements, the GN&C roles and responsibilities of the CEV, its navigation sensor suite and redundancy management scheme, and a candidate flight software architecture. This reference design was done independently by NASA during the CEV prime contractor downselect period, Phase 1, in an effort to make NASA smarter customers after downselect and good stewards of the CEV requirements.

Note: this old document is not a description of the current Orion GN&C but is probably close in its description of the sensors and basic functions.

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#101 2006-12-30 17:14:47

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#102 2007-01-15 04:47:09

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#103 2007-01-16 11:00:11

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#104 2007-01-16 13:32:45

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#105 2007-01-16 14:27:29

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#106 2007-01-16 16:23:09

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#107 2007-01-18 09:17:55

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#108 2007-01-19 01:19:11

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#109 2007-01-26 02:56:25

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#110 2007-01-27 12:03:44

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#111 2007-01-28 08:35:58

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#112 2007-01-30 12:02:57

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#113 2007-01-31 06:25:09

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#114 2007-02-01 17:41:19

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#115 2007-02-02 01:34:22

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#116 2007-02-02 07:10:22

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#117 2007-02-06 05:08:29

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#118 2007-02-09 07:13:06

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#119 2007-02-14 18:27:00

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#120 2007-02-19 05:48:02

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#121 2007-02-28 15:18:33

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#122 2007-02-28 18:00:00

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#123 2007-02-28 18:08:45

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#124 2007-03-01 02:54:09

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

#125 2007-03-05 07:14:03

Re: Orion (CEV / SM) - status

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