Test of Orion’s emergency system delayed

The 35-day federal government shutdown ended last week, but the budgetary impasse still is claiming victims at NASA.

NASA officials confirmed this week that the launch of the Orion test module, previously scheduled for April from Cape Canaveral, Fla., would be delayed because of the lost work days during the shutdown. They hope to determine a new launch date next week for the spacecraft, which is being built to take humans back to the moon.

The new date “is going to be past where we were, but it’s not going to be more than the duration of the shutdown,” said Mark Kirasich, Orion program manager. The launch will last just three minutes, but it will test the modules primary safety feature, known as the launch abort system. The system will allow the spacecraft’s eventual four-person crew to escape if the rocket explodes.

The importance of the system was put on display worldwide in October, when the Russian Soyuz spacecraft transporting an American astronaut to the International Space Station had to abort its launch after a rocket booster failed, forcing an emergency landing.

The abort — Russia’s first in 35 years — was a success, leaving both NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin safe and in good condition. But the incident was a stark reminder of why such a system is so important — especially for a vehicle tasked with hauling humans back to the moon for the first time in 50 years.

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. But a return to the moon is a top priority for President Donald Trump’s administration, and his $19.9 billion proposed budget for the next fiscal year tasks NASA with launching an uncrewed Orion flight by 2021, followed by a launch of Americans around the moon in 2023.

Kirasich said officials should be able to make up the lost time before the next step, an uncrewed flight.

Much of the work on the test module was completed at Johnson Space Center in Houston, but officials in December transported it to Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for its first and only flight.

The simplified module 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 personnel also are designing Orion’s cockpit and flight software, spacesuits and parachutes. Johnson 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.