Orion test capsule turns on, carries out flight simulations
JSC team breathes sigh of relief as components prove in working order
Chasing Orion: This is the second in a series of stories leading up to the April 2019 launch of Orion’s launch abort system, which is managed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
As the Orion spacecraft’s flight computers and communication systems finally powered up, Jon Olansen sent an elated message up the NASA chain of command.
“The crew module has come to life,” he wrote, letting out a sigh of relief.
It was the first time since work began in March that Olansen and his colleagues at NASA’s Johnson Space Center successfully turned on the module, which is a simplified version of the real Orion — being built separately by Lockheed Martin — that will take humans back to the moon for the first time in 50 years.
“gives us a good, positive feeling about where we are in preparation for launch,” said Olansen, the project’s manager.
But personnel have a lot more to do before April 2019, when NASA plans to launch the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Fla., for a three-minute test of its primary safety feature, known as the launch abort system. This system will allow the spacecraft’s eventual four-person crew to escape if the rocket explodes.
The Orion spacecraft has been in various stages of design for nearly two decades, its destination oscillating between the moon and Mars depending on White House leadership. A return to the moon is a top priority for the Trump administration and his $19.9 billion proposed budget for the next fiscal year tasks NASA with launching a crewless Orion flight by 2021, followed by a launch of Americans around the moon in 2023.
The simplified module being built by Johnson will not be reused once the test is complete. Additional capsules for the unmanned and crewed missions are under construction. The Space Launch System — the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built that will send Orion to space — as well as the ground systems for launch, are being developed simultaneously.
Johnson Space Center personnel also are designing Orion’s cockpit and flight software, spacesuits and parachutes. The center is home to the nation’s astronaut corps, where human space flight research and training take place. It is also home to the International Space Station’s mission operations and the Orion program.
From start to finish, the abort system test is expected to account for only $256 million of the program’s more than $11 billion budget, according to NASA.
The test’s cost is so low, in part, because the module being used for the test is a simplified version of the real Orion. It lacks seats, oxygen systems and parachutes, but contains the minimum systems needed for a successful test, such as flight computers, communication systems and about 800 data sensors.
This month, Johnson Space Center personnel not only ensured the module can turn on and is in working order, they also ran it through a battery of simulated in-flight failures to make sure it would work in April.
“You have to demonstrate that your components will execute the flight its intended to execute,” Olansen said. “We want to demonstrate it multiple times to know that … in failure scenarios it can do it as planned.”
In the next month, Olansen and his team will begin preparing to test the module’s weight and center of gravity. This is important because the capsule will lack many systems and objects the real Orion will have when it launches humans, JSC personnel must make sure the capsule has the same mass distribution as the real Orion. When completed, Orion will weigh about 22,000 pounds.
The module then will be sent to Glenn Research Center in Ohio for further testing, before it returns to the space center for more structural work.
All this work is building up to the April 2019 test, which will last just three minutes. In that three minutes, the capsule will sepaIt rate from the rocket at 31,000 feet in a half-second. This is important in case the rocket explodes and the crew needs to escape to safety.
Olansen said the project, at the moment, is still on track to launch in April 2019.
“We’ve had no major issues,” Olansen said. “As far as the components on the vehicle, everything is working well and we’re making good progress.”