posted 09-01-2009 02:04 PM               

NASA's Orion Spacecraft Passes Significant Design Milestone

NASA has taken a major step toward building the next crew exploration vehicle by completing the Orion Project's preliminary design review, or PDR. Orion is being designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and other destinations.

The preliminary design review is one of a series of checkpoints that occurs in the design life cycle of a complex engineering project before hardware manufacturing can begin. As the review process progresses, details of the vehicle's design are assessed to ensure the overall system is safe and reliable for flight and meets all NASA mission requirements.

The Orion features a capsule-shaped crew module designed for maximum crew operability and safety, a service module housing utility systems and propulsion components and a launch abort system for improved astronaut safety. The preliminary design review evaluated the vehicle's capability, as currently designed, to support three types of missions: flights to the International Space Station, weeklong missions to the moon and missions to the moon for up to 210 days.

"This is the successful culmination of all of the design trade studies and activities to date," said Mark Geyer, manager of the Orion Project Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "As a project, a program and an agency, we are reviewing the design maturity, strategy and plans for NASA's next human spacecraft and agreeing that this is the architecture we are going to build."

Teams representing each subsystem of Orion conducted focused reviews from February to July before proceeding to the overall vehicle-level review. The preliminary design review lasted about two months and included reviewers from all 10 NASA field centers to evaluate the hundreds of design products delivered by the Lockheed Martin-led industry partnership.

"The Orion vehicle design is much more mature than you might see on many programs at the PDR checkpoint because we have worked so closely with our NASA counterparts every step of the way during the vehicle design phase," said Cleon Lacefield, vice president and Orion project manager at Lockheed Martin in Denver. "To date we have completed more than 300 technical reviews, 100 peer reviews and 18 subsystem design reviews."

The PDR process culminated with a review board that concluded Aug. 31 and established the basis for proceeding to the critical design phase of Orion. Participants identified technical and management challenges and addressed ways to reduce potential risks as the project goes forward.

NASA will continue the review process with an independent agency-level evaluation to validate the PDR results and gain formal approval to transition the project into the next life cycle phase.

posted 07-10-2010 10:13 AM               

Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Passes Key NASA Milestone

The Orion crew exploration vehicle has successfully completed the Phase 1 Safety Review of NASA's Human Rating Requirements for space exploration in low Earth orbit and beyond. The NASA/ Lockheed Martin Orion team earned the approval from NASA's Constellation Safety & Engineering Review Panel (CSERP) upon completion of the review, an essential requirement for the Orion program to move forward to the Critical Design Review and Phase 2 Safety Review.

The safety review process is a rigorous and exhaustive look at the design and operational concepts to assure that all requirements have been adequately met. System safety requirements address potentially catastrophic failures that could result in loss of crew or loss of mission during launch, ascent to orbit, approach and docking to the International Space Station, re-entry, landing, and recovery operations. Thoroughly reviewing spacecraft designs and operations for possible causes of such catastrophic failures, and designing appropriate mitigations for them, is a critical part of NASA's human rating program.

Credit: NASA

Emergency crew escape evaluations are conducted at the Lockheed Martin Exploration Development Lab in Houston, Texas. In the event of an inoperable side hatch after splashdown, the crew must exit the Orion crew exploration vehicle through the docking port located at the top of the spacecraft. Pictured here: Lockheed Martin engineer John-Paul Stephens spots NASA crew survival equipment subsystem manager Dustin Gohmert as he slides down the side of the spacecraft.

"Completing this significant safety review puts Orion well down the road in satisfying the requirements to minimize the nation's gap in human space flight," said Paul Benfield, Lockheed Martin Integrated Reliability & Safety Manager for the Orion Program. "NASA's current human rating standards include stringent requirements and thorough procedures developed from the best practices of NASA's past 50 years of human spaceflight."

Benfield noted that human rating a vehicle for beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) is particularly challenging given the greater autonomy of such a mission, the extended mission durations, and increased time to return to Earth. This Phase 1 Safety milestone covers the requirements for Orion missions in LEO as well as sortie missions to the moon. The design enables a six-month on-orbit duration which is vital to assure return capability of the space station crew, as well as support autonomous lunar orbit operations. This long duration design far exceeds the one- to two-week capabilities offered by other potential providers.

"Human rating a spacecraft is not a feature you can just simply add on once the vehicle is designed," explained Benfield. "It is a process that requires endurance and attention to detail to ensure that safety is driven into every aspect of the vehicle design and operations from the beginning. Optimal safety and reliability is strategically and systematically incorporated into the vehicle from day one, concurrent with critical trade decisions considering vehicle mass and cost."

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion crew exploration vehicle - the nation's next generation spacecraft for future exploration throughout our solar system. The Orion spacecraft is comprised of a crew module for crew and cargo transport; a service module for propulsion, electrical power and fluids storage; a spacecraft adapter for securing it to the launch vehicle, and a launch abort system that will significantly improve crew safety.

The Orion crew exploration vehicle is at the peak of its development phase, which has spurred several new technologies and innovations in composites, structures, avionics and thermal protection systems. The spacecraft is on schedule to complete the Critical Design Review in 2011 which will put Orion on the path for flight to low Earth orbit as early as 2013, provided appropriate funding is approved in the near future.

The Lockheed Martin Orion Project office leads the industry team that includes major subcontractors as well as a network of minor subcontractors and small businesses working at 88 facilities in 28 states. In addition, the program contracts with more than 500 small businesses across the United States through its expansive supply chain network.