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102-457: Exploration Flight Test-1 or EFT-1 (previously known as Orion Flight Test 1 or OFT-1 ) was a technology demonstration mission and the first flight test of the crew module portion of the Orion spacecraft . Without a crew, it was launched on 5 December 2014 at 12:05  UTC (7:05 am  EST , local time at the launch site) by a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37B at

204-567: A Launch Abort System (LAS) along with a "Boost Protective Cover" (made of fiberglass ), to protect the Orion CM from aerodynamic and impact stresses during the first 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 minutes of ascent. Orion is designed to be 10 times safer during ascent and reentry than the Space Shuttle . The CM is designed to be refurbished and reused. In addition, all of Orion's component parts have been designed to be as modular as possible, so that between

306-503: A Moon landing . NASA solicited feasibility study designs from several companies in 1960 and 1961, while Faget and the Space Task Group worked on their own design using a conical/blunt-body capsule (Command Module) supported by a cylindrical Service Module providing electrical power and propulsion. NASA reviewed the entrants' designs in May 1961, but when President John F. Kennedy proposed

408-661: A direct ascent mission profile. This required a single-launch vehicle much larger than the Saturn V , or else multiple Saturn V launches to assemble it in Earth orbit before sending it to the Moon. Early on, the direct ascent mission profile was replaced with lunar orbit rendezvous , augmenting the CSM with the Lunar Excursion Module (LM) to ferry two astronauts to the lunar surface. This reduced

510-650: A "reverse flow" design. On July 9, 2008, NASA announced that ATK had completed construction of a vertical test stand at a facility in Promontory, Utah to test launch abort motors for the Orion spacecraft. Another long-time space motor contractor, Aerojet , was awarded the jettison motor design and development contract for the LAS. As of September 2008, Aerojet has, along with team members Orbital Sciences, Lockheed Martin and NASA, successfully demonstrated two full-scale test firings of

612-551: A 39-bit word composed of three 13-bit "syllables". All numeric data was 26-bit two's-complement integers (sometimes used as fixed-point numbers ), either stored in the first two syllables of a word or in the accumulator . Instructions (always with a 4-bit opcode and 9 bits of operand) could go in any syllable. The Apollo spacecraft was first conceived in 1960 as a three-man craft to follow Project Mercury, to accomplish several types of mission: ferrying astronauts to an Earth-orbiting space station , circumlunar flight, or

714-736: A Navy-built, 18,000-pound (8,200 kg) boilerplate in a test pool. Full sea testing ran April 6–30, 2009, at various locations off the coast of NASA's Kennedy Space Center with media coverage. On May 7, 2009, the Obama administration enlisted the Augustine Commission to perform a full independent review of the ongoing NASA space exploration program. The commission found the then-current Constellation Program to be woefully under-budgeted with significant cost overruns, behind schedule by four years or more in several essential components, and unlikely to be capable of meeting any of its scheduled goals. As

816-552: A boilerplate (mock-up) Orion capsule to an altitude of approximately 6,000 feet (1,800 m). The test used three solid-fuel rocket motors – the main thrust motor, an attitude control motor and the jettison motor. In 2009, during the Constellation phase of the program, the Post-landing Orion Recovery Test (PORT) was designed to determine and evaluate methods of crew rescue and what kind of motions

918-536: A consequence, the commission recommended a significant re-allocation of goals and resources. As one of the many outcomes based on these recommendations, on October 11, 2010, the Constellation program was canceled, ending development of the Altair, Ares I, and Ares V. The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle survived the cancellation and was transferred to be launched on the Space Launch System. The Orion development program

1020-413: A convex base, which carried a heat shield (Item 2 in the diagram below) consisting of an aluminum honeycomb covered with multiple layers of fiberglass . Strapped to it was a retropack ( 1 ) consisting of three rockets deployed to brake the spacecraft during reentry. Between these were three minor rockets for separating the spacecraft from the launch vehicle at orbital insertion. The straps that held

1122-518: A crew vehicle for a return to the Moon. The crew/command module was originally intended to land on solid ground on the US west coast using airbags but later changed to ocean splashdown, while a service module was included for life support and propulsion. With a diameter of 5 meters (16 ft 5 in) as opposed to 3.9 meters (12 ft 10 in), the Orion CEV would have provided 2.5 times greater volume than

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1224-408: A cylindrical interior cabin approximately 1 meter (3.3 ft) in diameter nearly perpendicular to the capsule's longitudinal axis. The cosmonaut sat in an ejection seat with a separate parachute for escape during a launch emergency and landing during a normal flight. The capsule had its own parachute for landing on the ground. Although official sources stated that Gagarin had landed inside his capsule,

1326-422: A docking probe, with an interior volume of 5.00 cubic meters (177 cu ft). The total spacecraft mass was 6,560 kilograms (14,460 lb). Ten of these craft flew crewed after Korolev's death, from 1967 to 1971. The first ( Soyuz 1 ) and last ( Soyuz 11 ) resulted in the first in-space fatalities. Korolev had developed a 9,850-kilogram (21,720 lb) 7K-LOK variant for use in the lunar mission, but this

1428-465: A half. You remember the tragic fire we had at the Cape. (...) Jesus, with that fire going off and that, it would have burned the suits. Everything was soaked in oxygen. So thank God. That was another thing: NASA never tested it under the conditions that they would have had if they would have had to eject. They did have some tests at China Lake where they had a simulated mock-up of Gemini capsule, but what they did

1530-641: A heavy-lift Ares V launch vehicle for lunar missions. NASA performed environmental testing of Orion from 2007 to 2011 at the Glenn Research Center Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio . The Center's Space Power Facility is the world's largest thermal vacuum chamber . ATK Aerospace successfully completed the first Orion Launch Abort System (LAS) test on November 20, 2008. The LAS motor could provide 500,000  lbf (2,200  kN ) of thrust in case an emergency situation should arise on

1632-498: A jettison motor (JM). The AM provides the thrust needed to accelerate the capsule, while the ACM is used to point the AM and the jettison motor separates the LAS from the crew capsule. On July 10, 2007, Orbital Sciences , the prime contractor for the LAS, awarded Alliant Techsystems (ATK) a $ 62.5 million sub-contract to "design, develop, produce, test and deliver the launch abort motor," which uses

1734-520: A large near-Earth asteroid and use robotic arms with anchoring grippers to retrieve a 4-meter boulder from the asteroid. A secondary objective was to develop the required technology to bring a small near-Earth asteroid into lunar orbit – "the asteroid was a bonus." There, it could be analyzed by the crew of the Orion EM-5 or EM-6 ARCM mission in 2026. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of

1836-410: A lightweight crew capsule proposed by Bigelow Aerospace in collaboration with Lockheed Martin. It was to be based on the Orion spacecraft that Lockheed Martin was developing for NASA. It was never developed. It was to be a lighter, less capable and a less expensive version of the full Orion. Orion Lite was intended to provide a stripped-down version of the Orion that would be available for missions to

1938-484: A lunar exploration mission. He was pressured by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to postpone development of Soyuz to work on Voskhod, and later allowed to develop Soyuz for space station and lunar exploration missions. He employed a small, lightweight bell-shaped reentry capsule, with an orbital crew module attached to its nose, containing the bulk of the mission living space. The service module would use two panels of electric solar cells for power generation, and contained

2040-537: A lunar flyby. Flights are expected to achieve a yearly cadence from Artemis IV onward in 2028. A proposal curated by William H. Gerstenmaier before his 10 July 2019 reassignment suggests four launches of the crewed Orion spacecraft and logistical modules aboard the SLS Block 1B to the Gateway. The crewed Artemis   4 through   7 would launch yearly, testing in situ resource utilization and nuclear power on

2142-408: A mass of 5,560 kilograms (12,260 lb) at launch. The Service Module was 13 feet (4.0 m) long, with a total Command/Service Module (CSM) vehicle length of 36 feet 2.5 inches (11.04 m) including the engine bell. The hypergolic propellant service propulsion engine was sized at 20,500 pounds-force (91,000 N) to lift the CSM off the lunar surface and send it back to Earth using

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2244-492: A national effort to land a man on the Moon during the 1960s, NASA decided to reject the feasibility studies and proceed with Faget's design, focused on the lunar landing mission. The contract to build Apollo was awarded to North American Aviation . The main Apollo spacecraft was built in two segments: a Command Module (CM) and a Service Module (SM). The CM was 154 inches (3.91 m) in diameter and 137 inches (3.48 m) high, with

2346-741: A partial launch abort system containing only the jettison motor. It was equipped with an Orion-to-stage adapter for testing. The spacecraft remained attached to the dummy service module, which in turn remained attached to the Delta IV's upper stage (which is nearly identical to the Interim Cryogenic Upper Stage to be used on the Block 1 version of the Space Launch System rocket) until re-entry began and relied on internal batteries for power rather than photovoltaic arrays . Data gathered from

2448-422: A propulsion system engine. The 7K-OK model designed for Earth orbit used a 2,810-kilogram (6,190 lb) reentry module measuring 2.17 meters (7.1 ft) in diameter by 2.24 meters (7.3 ft) long, with an interior volume of 4.00 cubic meters (141 cu ft). The 1,100-kilogram (2,400 lb) spheroidal orbital module measured 2.25 meters (7.4 ft) in diameter by 3.45 meters (11.3 ft) long with

2550-403: A range of other uncrewed satellites . It was a single-seat capsule that was 4.4 meters long and 2.4 meters in diameter, weighing 4.73 tonnes at launch. The reentry module was completely covered in ablative heat shield material, 2.3 meters (7.5 ft) in diameter, weighing 2,460 kilograms (5,420 lb). The capsule was covered with a nose cone to maintain a low-drag profile for launch, with

2652-483: A requirement for qualifying as a first crewed spaceflight under International Aeronautical Federation (IAF) rules, it was later revealed that all Vostok cosmonauts ejected and landed separately from the capsule. The capsule was serviced by an aft-facing conical equipment module 2.25 meters (7.4 ft) long by 2.43 meters (8.0 ft), weighing 2,270 kilograms (5,000 lb) containing nitrogen and oxygen breathing gasses, batteries, fuel, attitude control thrusters, and

2754-568: A second Vostok on a one-day flight on August 6, before the US finally orbited the first American, John Glenn , on February 20, 1962. The United States launched a total of two crewed suborbital Mercury capsules and four crewed orbital capsules, with the longest flight, Mercury-Atlas 9 , making 22 orbits and lasting 32 and one-half hours. Many components in the capsule itself were reachable through their own small access doors. Unlike Mercury, Gemini used completely solid-state electronics, and its modular design made it easy to repair. The Gemini spacecraft

2856-565: A similar capsule, the CST-100 , which has no Orion heritage, and was one of the two systems selected under NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program to transport crew to the ISS. Orion Lite's primary mission would be to transport crew to the International Space Station (ISS), or to private space stations such as the planned B330 from Bigelow Aerospace. While Orion Lite would have

2958-519: A spacesuit as a precaution against accidental descent module depressurization. The airlock was jettisoned after use. The lack of ejection seats meant that the Voskhod crew would return to Earth inside their spacecraft unlike the Vostok cosmonauts who ejected and parachuted down separately. Because of this, a new landing system was developed, which added a small solid-fuel rocket to the parachute lines. It fired as

3060-744: Is being manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen , Germany. NASA announced on January 16, 2013, that the ESA service module will first fly on Artemis I , the debut launch of the Space Launch System. Testing of the European service module began in February 2016, at the Space Power Facility . On February 16, 2017, a €200 million contract was signed between Airbus and the European Space Agency for

3162-593: Is built of aluminium-lithium alloy . The reusable recovery parachutes are based on the parachutes used on both the Apollo spacecraft and the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters , and constructed of Nomex cloth. Water landing is the exclusive means of recovery for the Orion CM. To allow Orion to mate with other vehicles, it will be equipped with the NASA Docking System . The spacecraft employs

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3264-786: Is designed to support future missions to send astronauts to Mars, probably to take place in the 2030s. Since the Orion capsule provides only about 2.25 m (79 cu ft) of living space per crew member, the use of an additional Deep Space Habitat (DSH) module featuring propulsion will be needed for long-duration missions. The complete spacecraft stack is known as the Deep Space Transport . The habitat module will provide additional space and supplies, as well as facilitate spacecraft maintenance, mission communications, exercise, training, and personal recreation. Some concepts for DSH modules would provide approximately 70.0 m (2,472 cu ft) of living space per crew member, though

3366-765: Is fill it full of nitrogen. They didn't have it filled full of oxygen in the sled test they had. Gemini was the first astronaut-carrying spacecraft to include an onboard computer, the Gemini Guidance Computer , to facilitate management and control of mission maneuvers. This computer, sometimes called the Gemini Spacecraft On-Board Computer (OBC), was very similar to the Saturn Launch Vehicle Digital Computer . The Gemini Guidance Computer weighed 58.98 pounds (26.75 kg). Its core memory had 4096 addresses , each containing

3468-711: The Boeing 787 . It incorporates an "autodock" feature, like those of Progress , the Automated Transfer Vehicle , and Dragon 2 , with provision for the flight crew to take over in an emergency. It has waste-management facilities, with a miniature camping-style toilet and the unisex "relief tube" used on the Space Shuttle. It has a nitrogen/oxygen ( N 2 / O 2 ) mixed atmosphere at either sea level (101.3  kPa or 14.69  psi ) or reduced (55.2 to 70.3 kPa or 8.01 to 10.20 psi) pressure. The CM

3570-501: The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station . The mission was a four-hour, two-orbit test of the Orion crew module featuring a high apogee on the second orbit and concluding with a high-energy reentry at around 8.9 kilometers per second (20,000 mph). This mission design corresponds to the Apollo 2/3 missions of 1966, which validated the Apollo flight control system and heat shield at re-entry conditions planned for

3672-559: The European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space . Capable of supporting a crew of four beyond low Earth orbit , Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels , an automated docking system , and glass cockpit interfaces. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide

3774-523: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration . Space capsule Current examples of crewed space capsules include Soyuz , Shenzhou , and Dragon 2 . Examples of new crew capsules currently in development include NASA's Orion , Boeing's Starliner , Russia's Orel , India's Gaganyaan , and China's Mengzhou . Historic examples of crewed capsules include Vostok , Mercury , Voskhod , Gemini , and Apollo , and active programs include

3876-539: The New Shepard launches. A crewed space capsule must be able to sustain life in an often demanding thermal and radiation environment in the vacuum of space. It may be expendable (used once, like Soyuz) or reusable (like Crew Dragon ). The Vostok was the Soviet Union 's first crewed space capsule. The first human spaceflight was Vostok 1 , accomplished on April 12, 1961 by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin . The capsule

3978-540: The "crawl, walk, run" approach established by PORT. The "crawl" phase was performed August 12–16, 2013, with the Stationary Recovery Test (SRT). The SRT demonstrated the recovery hardware and techniques that were to be employed for the recovery of the Orion CM in the protected waters of Naval Station Norfolk using the LPD-17 type USS Arlington as the recovery ship. The "walk" and "run" phases were performed with

4080-556: The Apollo CM. The service module was originally planned to use liquid methane (LCH 4 ) as its fuel, but switched to hypergolic propellants due to the infancy of oxygen/methane-powered rocket technologies and the goal of launching the Orion CEV by 2012. The Orion CEV was to be launched on the Ares I rocket to low Earth orbit, where it would rendezvous with the Altair lunar lander launched on

4182-535: The Apollo capsule and will carry four astronauts. After extensive study, NASA selected the Avcoat ablator system to provide heat protection encountered during reentry for the Orion crew module. Avcoat, which is composed of silica fibers with a resin in a honeycomb made of fiberglass and phenolic resin , was formerly used on the Apollo missions and on the Space Shuttle orbiter for early flights. The CM uses Glass cockpit digital control systems derived from those of

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4284-479: The Block I design. Block I would be used for uncrewed test flights and a limited number of Earth orbit crewed flights. Though the service propulsion engine was now bigger than required, its design was not changed since significant development was already in progress; however, the propellant tanks were downsized slightly to reflect the modified fuel requirement. Based on astronaut preference, the Block II CM would replace

4386-631: The DSH module is in its early conceptual stage. DSH sizes and configurations may vary slightly, depending on crew and mission needs. The mission may launch in the mid-2030s or late-2030s. The Asteroid Redirect Mission ( ARM ), also known as the Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization ( ARU ) mission and the Asteroid Initiative , was a space mission proposed by NASA in 2013. The Asteroid Retrieval Robotic Mission (ARRM) spacecraft would rendezvous with

4488-556: The International Space Station earlier than the more capable Orion, which is designed for longer duration missions to the Moon and Mars . Bigelow had begun working with Lockheed Martin in 2004. A few years later Bigelow signed a million-dollar contract to develop "an Orion mockup, an Orion Lite", in 2009. The proposed collaboration between Bigelow and Lockheed Martin on the Orion Lite spacecraft has ended. Bigelow began work with Boeing on

4590-526: The McDonnell Aircraft Corporation as its contractor in 1959. The Mercury spacecraft's principal designer was Maxime Faget , who started research for human spaceflight during the time of the NACA. It was 10.8 feet (3.3 m) long and 6.0 feet (1.8 m) wide; with the launch escape system added, the overall length was 25.9 feet (7.9 m). With 100 cubic feet (2.8 m ) of habitable volume,

4692-596: The Orion program had expended funding totaling $ 22.9 billion in nominal dollars. This is equivalent to $ 29.4 billion in 2024 dollars using the NASA New Start Inflation Indices. In 2024, the US Congress approved "up to" $ 1.339 billion for the NASA Orion spacecraft. Excluded from the prior Orion costs are: For 2021 to 2025, NASA estimates yearly budgets for Orion from $ 1.4 to $ 1.1 billion. In late 2015,

4794-540: The Orion program was assessed at a 70% confidence level for its first crewed flight by 2023, but in January of 2024 NASA announced plans for a first crewed flight of Orion no earlier than September 2025. There are no NASA estimates for the Orion program recurring yearly costs once operational, for a certain flight rate per year, or for the resulting average costs per flight. However, a production and operations contract awarded to Lockheed Martin in 2019 indicated NASA will pay

4896-552: The Orion spacecraft. The Orion capsule used for EFT-1 is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex , in the "NASA Now" exhibit. Orion (spacecraft)#Crew Module Orion ( Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV ) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA 's Artemis program . The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and

4998-630: The Underway Recovery Test (URT). Also using an LPD 17 class ship, the URT was performed in more realistic sea conditions off the coast of California in early 2014 to prepare the US Navy / NASA team for recovering the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) Orion CM. The URT tests completed the pre-launch test phase of the Orion recovery system. Orion Lite is an unofficial name used in the media for

5100-597: The approximate size of a fireball produced by an exploding launch vehicle and from this he gauged that the Titan II would produce a much smaller explosion, thus the spacecraft could get away with ejection seats. Maxime Faget , the designer of the Mercury LES, was on the other hand less-than-enthusiastic about this setup. Aside from the possibility of the ejection seats seriously injuring the astronauts, they would also only be usable for about 40 seconds after liftoff, by which point

5202-418: The astronaut crew could expect after landing, including conditions outside the capsule for the recovery team. The evaluation process supported NASA's design of landing recovery operations including equipment, ship and crew needs. The PORT Test used a full-scale boilerplate (mock-up) of NASA's Orion crew module and was tested in water under simulated and real weather conditions. Tests began March 23, 2009, with

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5304-533: The booster would be attaining Mach 1 speed and ejection would no longer be possible. He was also concerned about the astronauts being launched through the Titan's exhaust plume if they ejected in-flight and later added, "The best thing about Gemini was that they never had to make an escape." The Gemini ejection system was never tested with the Gemini cabin pressurized with pure oxygen, as it was prior to launch. In January 1967,

5406-421: The capsule had to be protected from reentry heat on all sides, determining the spherical design (as opposed to Project Mercury 's conical design, which allowed for maximum volume while minimizing the heat shield diameter). During reentry, the heat of atmospheric friction is so great that air molecules around the capsule are ionized, creating a layer of plasma around the capsule which blocks radio communication with

5508-406: The capsule was just large enough for a single crew member. Inside were 120 controls: 55 electrical switches, 30 fuses and 35 mechanical levers. The heaviest spacecraft, Mercury-Atlas 9, weighed 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) fully loaded. Its outer skin was made of René 41 , a nickel alloy able to withstand high temperatures. The spacecraft was cone shaped, with a neck at the narrow end. It had

5610-654: The craft's first test flight in 2014 and its projected Mars voyage in the 2030s, the spacecraft can be upgraded as new technologies become available. As of 2019, the Spacecraft Atmospheric Monitor is planned to be used in the Orion CM. In May 2011, the ESA director general announced a possible collaboration with NASA to work on a successor to the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). On June 21, 2012, Airbus Defence and Space announced that they had been awarded two separate studies, each worth €6.5 million, to evaluate

5712-533: The data and are not directly available. This was done by design to lower NASA's expenditures" in 2017. The idea for a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) was announced on January 14, 2004, as part of the Vision for Space Exploration after the Space Shuttle Columbia accident . The CEV effectively replaced the conceptual Orbital Space Plane (OSP), a proposed replacement for the Space Shuttle. A design competition

5814-515: The descent module neared touchdown, providing a softer landing. The Mercury program was the United States' first crewed space program. It ran from 1958 through 1963, with the goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth and returning him safely. The program used a small capsule attached to a booster rocket to achieve orbit. The development of the Mercury capsule began in earnest after NASA selected

5916-410: The ejection seats could not be used, the astronauts would return to Earth inside the spacecraft, which would separate from the launch vehicle. The main proponent of using ejection seats was Chamberlin, who had never liked the Mercury escape tower and wished to use a simpler alternative that would also reduce weight. He reviewed several films of Atlas and Titan II ICBM failures, which he used to estimate

6018-608: The fatal Apollo 1 fire demonstrated that pressurizing a spacecraft with pure oxygen created an extremely dangerous fire hazard. In a 1997 oral history, astronaut Thomas P. Stafford commented on the Gemini 6 launch abort in December 1965, when he and command pilot Wally Schirra nearly ejected from the spacecraft: So it turns out what we would have seen, had we had to do that, would have been two Roman candles going out, because we were 15 or 16 psi, pure oxygen, soaking in that for an hour and

6120-594: The fire was probably started by a spark from a frayed wire, and fed by combustible materials that should not have been in the cabin. The crewed flight program was delayed while design changes were made to the Block II spacecraft to replace the pure oxygen pre-launch atmosphere with an air-like nitrogen/oxygen mixture, eliminate combustible materials from the cabin and the astronauts' space suits, and seal all electrical wiring and corrosive coolant lines. The Block II spacecraft weighed 63,500 pounds (28,800 kg) fully fueled, and

6222-458: The ground, with their results (retrofire times and firing attitude) then transmitted to the spacecraft by radio while in flight. All computer systems used in the Mercury space program were housed in NASA facilities on Earth . The computer systems were IBM 701 computers. The US launched its first Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight almost a month after the first crewed orbital spaceflight. The Soviets were able to launch

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6324-409: The ground. However, ionized gases in the plasma layer can also be used to create an artificial radio window, allowing communication signals to be transmitted and received despite the interference. Some control of the capsule's reentry orientation was possible by offsetting its center of gravity. Proper orientation with the cosmonaut's back to the direction of flight was necessary in order to best sustain

6426-573: The heat shield to temperatures up to around 2,200 °C (4,000 °F). After splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, crews from the USS Anchorage recovered the EFT-1 Orion crew vehicle. Plans were later made to outfit the capsule for an ascent abort test in 2017. NASA heavily promoted the mission, collaborating with Sesame Street and its characters to educate children about the flight test and

6528-546: The jettison motor. This motor is used on every flight, as it separates the LAS from the vehicle after both a successful launch and a launch abort. With the announcement in 2019 of the intent to procure a Human Landing System for Artemis missions, NASA provided Orion mass and propulsion capability values. After separation from the SLS upper stage, the Orion is expected to have a mass of 26,375 kg (58,147 lb) and be capable of performing maneuvers requiring up to 1,050 m/s (3,445 ft/s) of delta-v . The Orion MPCV

6630-444: The launch pad or during the first 300,000 feet (91 km) of the rocket's climb to orbit. On March 2, 2009, a full size, full weight command module mockup (pathfinder) began its journey from the Langley Research Center to White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico for at-gantry launch vehicle assembly training and for LES testing. On May 10, 2010, NASA successfully executed the LES PAD-Abort-1 test at White Sands, launching

6732-403: The lunar surface with a partially reusable lander. Artemis   7 would deliver a crew of four astronauts to a surface lunar outpost known as the Lunar Surface Asset. The Lunar Surface Asset would be launched by an undetermined launcher and would be used for extended crewed lunar surface missions. Another repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is also possible. The Orion capsule

6834-498: The more durable heat shield of the Orion would be replaced with a lighter weight heat shield designed to support the lower temperatures of Earth atmospheric re-entry from low Earth orbit. Additionally, the current proposal calls for a mid-air retrieval , wherein another aircraft captures the descending Orion Lite module. To date, such a retrieval method has not been employed for crewed spacecraft, although it has been used with satellites . The first crewed flight, Artemis II , will be

6936-449: The narrow end of the spacecraft contained three parachutes: a drogue to stabilize free fall and two main chutes, a primary and reserve. Between the heat shield and inner wall of the crew compartment was a landing skirt, deployed by letting down the heat shield before landing. On top of the recovery compartment was the antenna section ( 5 ) containing both antennas for communication and scanners for guiding spacecraft orientation. Attached

7038-427: The net spacecraft mass, allowing the mission to be launched with a single Saturn V . Since significant development work had started on the design, it was decided to continue with the existing design as Block I, while a Block II version capable of rendezvous with the LEM would be developed in parallel. Besides addition of a docking tunnel and probe, Block II would employ equipment improvements based on lessons learned from

7140-474: The package could be severed when it was no longer needed. Next to the heat shield was the pressurized crew compartment ( 3 ). Inside, an astronaut would be strapped to a form-fitting seat with instruments in front of him and with his back to the heat shield. Underneath the seat was the environmental control system supplying oxygen and heat, scrubbing the air of CO 2 , vapor and odors, and (on orbital flights) collecting urine. The recovery compartment ( 4 ) at

7242-409: The plug-door hatch design. While participating in a pre-launch test on the pad on January 27, 1967, in preparation for the first crewed launch in February, the entire crew of Apollo 1 —Grissom, Edward H. White , and Roger Chaffee —were killed in a fire that swept through the cabin. The plug door made it impossible for the astronauts to escape or be removed before their deaths. An investigation revealed

7344-442: The possibilities of using technology and experience gained from ATV and Columbus related work for future missions. The first looked into the possible construction of a service module which would be used in tandem with the Orion CM. The second examined the possible production of a versatile multi purpose orbital vehicle. On November 21, 2012, the ESA decided to develop an ATV -derived service module for Orion. The service module

7446-466: The prime contractor $ 900 million for the first three Orion capsules and $ 633 million for the following three. In 2016, the NASA manager of exploration systems development said that Orion, SLS, and supporting ground systems should cost "US$ 2 billion or less" annually. NASA will not provide the cost per flight of Orion and SLS, with associate administrator William H. Gerstenmaier stating "costs must be derived from

7548-601: The production of a second European service module for use on the first crewed Orion flight, Artemis II . On October 26, 2018, the first unit for Artemis I was assembled in full at Airbus Defence and Space's factory in Bremen, Germany. In the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent, the Launch Abort System (LAS) will separate the crew module from the launch vehicle using three solid rocket motors: an abort motor (AM), an attitude control motor (ACM), and

7650-477: The proposed Lunar Gateway . The spacecraft's life support, propulsion, thermal protection, and avionics systems can be upgraded as new technologies become available. At launch, the Orion spacecraft includes both crew and service modules, a spacecraft adapter and an emergency launch abort system. The Orion 's crew module is larger than Apollo 's and can support more crew members for short or long-duration missions. The European service module propels and powers

7752-440: The remainder of the spacecraft was completed. The Delta IV rocket was put in a vertical position on 1 October 2014, and Orion was mated with the vehicle on 11 November. The four-and-a-half-hour flight took the Orion spacecraft on two orbits of Earth. Peak altitude was approximately 5,800 kilometres (3,600 mi). The high altitude allowed the spacecraft to reach reentry speeds of up to 8.9 km/s (20,000 mph), which exposed

7854-457: The retrorocket. It could support flights as long as ten days. Six Vostok launches were successfully conducted, the last two pairs in concurrent flights. The longest flight was just short of five days, on Vostok 5 on June 14–19, 1963. Since the attitude control thrusters were located in the instrument module which was discarded immediately prior to reentry, the reentry module's path and orientation could not be actively controlled. This meant that

7956-480: The return from lunar missions. EFT-1 tested various systems of the crew module portion of the Orion spacecraft , including separation events , avionics , heat shielding , parachutes , and recovery operations prior to its flight aboard the Space Launch System rocket on the Artemis I mission. The Orion was not equipped with its companion European Service Module , using only a structural representation, and only had

8058-454: The same basic configuration as the Apollo command and service module (CSM) that first took astronauts to the Moon, but with an increased diameter, updated thermal protection system, and other more modern technologies. It is designed to support long-duration deep space missions with up to 21 days of active crew time plus 6 months' quiescent spacecraft life. During the quiescent period, crew life support would be provided by another module, such as

8160-604: The same concept (orbital, reentry and service modules) as Soyuz . Its first uncrewed test flight was in 1999, and the first crewed flight in October 2003 carried Yang Liwei for 14 Earth orbits. The seven-seat SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule first launched crew to the International Space Station on 30 May 2020 on the Demo-2 mission for NASA. Although originally envisaged as a development of SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon capsule which

8262-422: The same exterior dimensions as the Orion, there would be no need for the deep space infrastructure present in the Orion configuration. As such, the Orion Lite would have been able to support larger crews of around 7 people as the result of greater habitable interior volume and the reduced weight of equipment needed to support an exclusively low-Earth-orbit configuration. In order to reduce the weight of Orion Lite,

8364-407: The spacecraft as well as storing oxygen and water for astronauts. Orion relies on solar energy rather than fuel cells, which allows for longer missions. The Orion crew module (CM) is a reusable transportation capsule that provides a habitat for the crew, provides storage for consumables and research instruments, and contains the docking port for crew transfers. The crew module is the only part of

8466-542: The spacecraft that returns to Earth after each mission and is a 57.5° frustum shape with a blunt spherical aft end, 5.02 meters (16 ft 6 in) in diameter and 3.3 meters (10 ft 10 in) in length, with a mass of about 8.5 metric tons (19,000 lb). It was manufactured by the Lockheed Martin Corporation at Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans , Louisiana. It has 50% more volume than

8568-482: The spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Orion is intended to be launched atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system . Orion was conceived in the early 2000s by Lockheed Martin as a proposal for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to be used in NASA's Constellation program and was selected by NASA in 2006. Following the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010, Orion

8670-616: The test flight were analyzed by the critical design review (CDR) in April 2015. Artemis I launched on 16 November 2022, more than seven years after EFT-1. Orion CM-001 used on the EFT-1 mission was built by Lockheed Martin . On 22 June 2012, the final welds of the EFT-1 Orion were completed at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana . It was then transported to Kennedy Space Center 's Operations and Checkout Building , where

8772-407: The two-piece plug door hatch cover, chosen to avoid an accidental hatch opening such as had happened on Gus Grissom 's Mercury-Redstone 4 flight, with a one-piece, outward-opening hatch to make egress easier at the end of the mission. The Mercury-Gemini practice of using a prelaunch atmosphere of 16.7 pounds per square inch (1,150 mbar) pure oxygen proved to be disastrous in combination with

8874-513: The which also maximized the 8 to 9 g-force . The Vostok design was modified to permit carrying multi-cosmonaut crews, and flown as two flights of the Voskhod programme . The cylindrical interior cabin was replaced with a wider, rectangular cabin which could hold either three cosmonauts seated abreast (Voskhod 1), or two cosmonauts with an inflatable airlock in between them, to permit extravehicular activity (Voskhod 2). A backup solid-fuel retro rocket

8976-557: Was a flap used to ensure the spacecraft was faced heat shield first during reentry. A launch escape system ( 6 ) was mounted to the narrow end of the spacecraft containing three small solid-fueled rockets which could be fired briefly in a launch failure to separate the capsule safely from its booster. It would deploy the capsule's parachute for a landing nearby at sea. (See also Mission profile for details.) The Mercury spacecraft did not have an on-board computer, instead relying on all computation for reentry to be calculated by computers on

9078-454: Was added to the top of the descent module. Vostok's ejection seat was removed to save space (thus there was no provision for crew escape in the event of a launch or landing emergency). The complete Voskhod spacecraft weighed 5,682 kilograms (12,527 lb). Lack of space meant that the crew members of Voskhod 1 did not wear space suits . Both Voskhod 2 crew members wore spacesuits, as it involved an EVA by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov . An airlock

9180-472: Was announced by NASA on May 24, 2011. Its design is based on the Crew Exploration Vehicle from the canceled Constellation program , which had been a 2006 NASA contract award to Lockheed Martin. The command module is being built by Lockheed Martin at the Michoud Assembly Facility , while the Orion service module is being built by Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen with funding from the European Space Agency. The CM's first uncrewed test flight (EFT-1)

9282-484: Was extensively redesigned for use in NASA's Journey to Mars initiative; later named Moon to Mars. The SLS became Orion's primary launch vehicle, and the service module was replaced with a design based on the European Space Agency 's Automated Transfer Vehicle . A development version of Orion's crew module was launched in 2014 during Exploration Flight Test-1 , while at least four test articles were produced. Orion

9384-406: Was heavy and complicated, and NASA engineers reasoned that they could do away with it as the Titan II's hypergolic propellants would burn immediately on contact. A Titan II booster explosion had a smaller blast effect and flame than on the cryogenically fueled Atlas and Saturn. Ejection seats were sufficient to separate the astronauts from a malfunctioning launch vehicle. At higher altitudes, where

9486-457: Was held, and the winner was the proposal from a consortium led by Lockheed Martin. It was later named "Orion" after the stellar constellation and mythical hunter of the same name, and became part of the Constellation program under NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe . Constellation proposed using the Orion CEV in both crew and cargo variants to support the International Space Station and as

9588-616: Was launched without the EUS atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket on December 5, 2014, and lasted 4 hours and 24 minutes before landing at its target in the Pacific Ocean . On November 30, 2020, it was reported that NASA and Lockheed Martin had found a failure with a component in one of the Orion spacecraft's power data units but NASA later clarified that it did not expect the issue to affect the Artemis I launch date. For fiscal years 2006 through 2023,

9690-527: Was needed because the vehicle's electrical and environmental systems were air-cooled, and complete capsule depressurization would lead to overheating. The airlock weighed 250 kg (551 lb 2 oz), was 700 mm (28 in) in diameter, 770 mm (30 in) high when collapsed for launch. When extended in orbit, it was 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) long, had an internal diameter of 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and an external diameter of 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in). The second crew member wore

9792-515: Was never flown crewed. The Russians continued to develop and fly the Soyuz to this day. Space capsules have also been used for scientific research and experimentation in space. For example, the Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft has carried out experiments in life sciences, material sciences, fluid dynamics, and space environment monitoring. The PRC developed its Shenzhou spacecraft in the 1990s based on

9894-548: Was originally designed for use both as a camera platform for the Soviet Union's first spy satellite program, Zenit and as a crewed spacecraft. This dual-use design was crucial in gaining Communist Party support for the program. The design used a spherical reentry module, with a biconic descent module containing attitude control thrusters, on-orbit consumables, and the retro rocket for orbit termination. The basic design has remained in use for some 40 years, gradually adapted for

9996-550: Was primarily designed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado , with former Space Shuttle engineer Julie Kramer White at NASA as Orion's chief engineer. As of 2022 , three flight-worthy Orion spacecraft were under construction, with one completed and an additional one ordered, for use in NASA's Artemis program . The first completed unit, CM-002, was launched on November 16, 2022, on Artemis I . Orion uses

10098-583: Was restructured from three different versions of the Orion capsule, each for a different task, to the development of the MPCV as a single version capable of performing multiple tasks. On December 5, 2014, a developmental Orion spacecraft was successfully launched into space and retrieved at sea after splashdown on the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1). Before EFT-1 in December 2014, several preparatory vehicle recovery tests were performed, which continued

10200-426: Was the precursor to the Apollo program which aimed to land humans on the Moon. It was designed to test new techniques for orbital rendezvous and docking, but it also featured improvements in life support systems, spacecraft reentry, and other critical areas. Gemini's emergency launch escape system did not use an escape tower powered by a solid-fuel rocket , but instead used aircraft-style ejection seats . The tower

10302-559: Was used for the NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract, the demands of crewed spaceflight resulted in a significantly redesigned vehicle with limited commonality. The Dragon capsule was designed to be reusable. In fact, SpaceX has flown the same Dragon capsule to the International Space Station multiple times, with the first successful reuse occurring in June 2017. The six-seat Blue Origin developed New Shepard crew capsule

10404-555: Was used in four crewed Earth and lunar orbital test flights, and seven crewed lunar landing missions. A modified version of the spacecraft was also used to ferry three crews to the Skylab space station, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission which docked with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The Apollo spacecraft was retired after 1974. In 1963, Korolev first proposed the three-man Soyuz spacecraft for use in Earth orbit assembly of

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