2010 Orion Program Status
- Paper ID
5847
- author
- company
Lockheed Martin Space Systems
- country
United States
- year
2010
- abstract
NASA formed the Constellation Program to achieve the objectives of maintaining American presence in low Earth orbit, returning to the Moon for purposes of establishing an outpost, and exploring Mars and beyond in the first half of the 21st century. Within Constellation, several projects have been defined to implement the various elements of the initial transportation architecture. The Orion crew exploration vehicle (CEV) Project was established to develop the spacecraft for lunar missions and to be used to carry crew to the International Space Station (ISS) after the Space Shuttle retires. In 2008 Orion held a successful System Baseline Review (SBR) setting the path to a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) currently scheduled for August 2009. Most recently the newly elected United States president and new NASA adminstration have reviewed the schedules for the shuttle retirement and development of the elements that make up the Constellation program. This paper will describe the most recent progress of the Orion Project, including impact of the new administration on Constellation, current architecture and design concept, Orion flight test program, and schedule overview.