posted 12-02-2016 03:06 PM               

Please use this topic to discuss Artemis II, NASA's first crewed flight of the Space Launch System with its Orion spacecraft.

posted 12-05-2016 11:37 AM            

The current justification for Orion/SLS is nonsensical. The flight rate is so low, the costs so high, and for what?

Heavy lift is important. We haven't had it in proper quatanties for decades. But Orion is the orphan child of Constellation. It was envisioned to handle rather brief lunar trips, not for 500+ day missions to Mars.

I would challenge anyone at NASA to justify hauling what is essentially a re-entry vehicle for Earth's atmosphere all the way to Mars and back. You can't live in the thing, you need a hab. And if you have a hab with its own controls, why do you need a capsule?

Soyuz spacecraft are certified for six months attached to ISS. Exposing your re-entry vehicle to deep space conditions for far longer and risking your safe return to Earth sounds like a tremendously unnecessary challenge.

posted 12-05-2016 01:48 PM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
Soyuz spacecraft are certified for six months attached to ISS. Exposing your re-entry vehicle to deep space conditions for far longer and risking your safe return to Earth sounds like a tremendously unnecessary challenge.

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There is no risk or challenge. How else are spacecraft going to enter Mars atmosphere if we can't make entry vehicles that can't survive deep space for the outbound trip? Same goes for the landing X-37B after more than two years in orbit. Or the entry vehicles for Genesis, Stardust, and especially OSIRIS-REx with its capsule surviving in deep space for more than seven years.

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I would challenge anyone at NASA to justify hauling what is essentially a re-entry vehicle for Earth's atmosphere all the way to Mars and back. You can't live in the thing, you need a hab. And if you have a hab with its own controls, why do you need a capsule?

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posted 12-05-2016 03:01 PM            

Say, for one example, a micrometeoroid punctures Orion on day 50 outbound and it bleeds out. How do you contend with that? Close the hatch. Complete the mission, and hope someone comes up with a plan over the next few months to get you back, I suppose.

Exposure to space for the surface related spacecraft is limited to a one way trip, then on the surface as well, but that is a necessary requirement of the mission. A lot of money and engineering will have to be thrown at those challenges. So the question is, how much more money and engineering does Orion take to meet its design requirements?

I'm not sure Orion could support four people for very long as a safe haven. Even if its own consumables could last (I have no idea if they could... would it be powered down during coast?) the crew would have no doubt left everything else they need to survive in whatever module they have to evacuate.

Now, if you ask me if SLS were the rocket to get us to Mars I would say no. In fact, I don't think any chemical rocket will get us there. Some of these other technologies that are coming along could cut the trip time by significant amounts, thus reducing the risk to vehicles and crew.

posted 12-05-2016 06:35 PM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
Say, for one example, a micrometeoroid punctures Orion on day 50 outbound and it bleeds out. How do you contend with that?

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So the question is, how much more money and engineering does Orion take to meet its design requirements?

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I'm not sure Orion could support four people for very long as a safe haven.

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It would be sad to have our intrepid crew coasting out to Mars, from a chemical push they got months prior, watching their SEP-powered supply ship zip by them on the way out!

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posted 12-05-2016 08:25 PM            

I think SLS is a good rocket for what it was intended to be when it was the Ares (let's face it, Orion and SLS are politically resurrected Ares type vehicles). That being a short lunar sortie-type mission that could lay the groundwork for a base there.

It's been long discussed how the design was parsed out to some of the shuttle legacy contactors and essentially designed by committee. Orion itself was axed then later reinstated as a super expensive option to the Dragon and CST-100. The SLS/Orion design was, therefore, not a vehicle designed for its intended mission of going to Mars.

In efforts to offer more livable space for deep space missions, there were even concepts floated to fly two docked Orions on these flights. Why buy one when you can get two for twice the price? Silly.

SEP was just one example for propulsion. There are other technologies coming along such as (gritting my teeth) VASMIR, ion, and this new, yet to be fully understood microwave thing that has recently been confirmed to work. The key to the whole thing is to cut down the travel time... better on astronauts, and it eases the requirements for all of the equipment and spacecraft.

Personally, I think if SLS must go forward, use it to do manned lunar missions. Develop technologies there. Bring in international and commercial partners to do the resupply stuff. Gain operational experience and go after the water there.

Invest in new propulsion technologies and when mature, incorporate that into purpose-built deep space exploration vehicles down the road.

posted 12-05-2016 09:25 PM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
The SLS/Orion design was, therefore, not a vehicle designed for its intended mission of going to Mars.

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SEP was just one example for propulsion. There are other technologies coming along such as (gritting my teeth) VASMIR, ion...

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You can do that on SLS in large chunks at a higher per-launch price, or you can do it piecemeal on smaller, cheaper (commercial) launch vehicles, but you increase the risk to key components with every additional flight. It is a trade off — there are benefits and drawbacks to each approach.

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...and this new, yet to be fully understood microwave thing that has recently been confirmed to work.

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posted 12-05-2016 10:09 PM            

Back to the topic of EM-2, I look forward to its success. I think regardless of how we figure out how to get to Mars, having the capability to do some of the things it will demonstrate opens many possibilities in the meantime.

posted 12-06-2016 06:35 AM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
While I disagree on several of your replies, rather than go line by line, I would offer a generalized concept.

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posted 12-06-2016 09:22 AM            

Your scenario assumes there was no other irreparable damage done to Orion or its systems. What if the meteoroid took out some vital controls with no redundancy elsewhere? What if the parachutes or their control mechanisms get damaged?

I can think of some mitigations as well... have Orion in a trailing position shielded by other structure or even enclose it in a "hangar" to protect it from damage and thermally comfy.

But if they decide to take it on the entire trip, it does indeed assume a higher risk. Just a very basic risk model looks at the potential severity of a threat as compared to the potential exposure to it. The longer you expose yourself to a potential catastrophic threat, without mitigation, the more risk you assume.

posted 12-06-2016 11:03 AM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
But if they decide to take it on the entire trip, it does indeed assume a higher risk.

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I've mentioned a few mitigations, and another would be to speed the trip up using alternative propulsion technologies.

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posted 12-06-2016 08:40 PM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
It will be interesting to see in the coming months where this is all going to lead.

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Amounts made available by section 101 for 'National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Exploration' may be apportioned up to the rate for operations necessary to maintain the planned launch capability schedules for the Space Launch System launch vehicle, Exploration Ground Systems, and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle programs.

posted 04-16-2018 10:51 AM               

Although it has not been officially announced, in recent weeks mission planners at the space agency have begun designing "Exploration Mission 2" to be launched on the Block 1 version of the SLS rocket, which has the capability to lift 70 tons to low Earth orbit.

Acting agency administrator Robert Lightfoot confirmed during a Congressional hearing on Thursday that NASA is seriously considering launching humans to the Moon on the Block 1 SLS. "We'll change the mission profile if we fly humans and we use the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), because we can't do what we could do if we have the Exploration Upper Stage," Lightfoot said.

posted 08-28-2018 02:08 PM               

Now in the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, Lockheed Martin technicians will immediately start assembly and integration on the EM-2 crew module.

posted 08-29-2018 10:27 AM               

"[The trajectories] are all free-returns but the altitude that you target on your free return would adjust your mission duration," Merancy explained. "We are picking 4800 nautical miles, because that makes it an even number of days so you fly by [the Moon] during the middle of the crew day — it would be really sucky to fly by in the middle of crew sleep."

"So we picked the altitude for the shortest time that was an even number of days," she continued, "so four days out, four days in, which puts fly by right in the middle of the crew day, the same time they did TLI. That was the rationale for the altitude we've picked right now. If you wanted to do a longer mission, you just pick a further altitude but that does mean you're flying farther from the Moon when you go by. There's no real reason to do that right now."

posted 12-19-2020 11:15 AM               

NASA astronauts Stephanie Wilson, Jonny Kim, and Randy Bresnik take a look at the Orion spacecraft simulator that recently arrived at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

posted 04-05-2021 03:25 PM               

NASA to Host Virtual Viewing of Orion Spacecraft Drop Test

Engineers will drop a 14,000-pound test version of the Orion spacecraft into the Hydro Impact Basin at NASA's Langley Research Center's Landing and Impact Research Facility in Hampton, Virginia, at 1:45 p.m. EDT Tuesday, April 6.

The test will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app and the agency's website, and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the Facebook channels for Orion and Langley.

Participants include:

• Debbie Korth, Orion Crew and Service Module manager, NASA's Johnson Space Center
  
• Jacob Putnam, data analyst, Langley

The public may ask questions on social media using #AskNASA.

This series of drop tests began March 23 to finalize computer models for loads and structures prior to the Artemis II flight test, NASA's first mission with crew aboard Orion. Artemis II will carry astronauts around the Moon and back, paving the way to land the first woman and next man on the lunar surface and establish a sustainable presence at the Moon under the Artemis program. The current test series builds on previous tests and uses a configuration of the crew module based on the spacecraft's final design.

posted 11-09-2021 03:43 PM               

Our update for you today is this: NASA is committed to an updated Orion development cost of $9.3 billion from fiscal year 12 through the first crewed flight test no later than May 2024.

posted 01-29-2023 05:43 PM               

CNN has learned the decision for who gets to go to the moon will be made by three key people at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where every US astronaut has lived and trained since 1961.

The first person in the decision process is the chief astronaut, a role currently filled on an acting basis by Wiseman's deputy, Drew Feustel. Sources told CNN that the chief, whether it's Feustel or someone else, will take their initial recommendations to the head of the Flight Operations Directorate, Norm Knight, and then on to the director of Johnson Space Center, Vanessa Wyche, who is responsible for signing off on the final four selections.

posted 03-09-2023 02:06 PM               

Four crew members — three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency — will fly around the moon. Together, they'll test the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. We are going!