March 17, 2014

Image Caption: Engineers prepare Orions service module for installation of the fairings that will protect it during launch this fall when Orion launches on its first mission. The service module, along with its fairings, is now complete. Credit: NASA

NASA

Orion is marching ever closer to its first trip to space on a flight that will set the stage for human exploration of new destinations in the solar system.

The Orion team continues to work toward completing the spacecraft to be ready for a launch in September-October. However, the initial timeframe for the launch of Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) has shifted from September-October to early December to support allowing more opportunities for launches this year. Completing the spacecraft according to the original schedule will allow many engineers and technicians to continue transitioning to work on the Orion spacecraft that will fly atop the agencys Space Launch System. It will also ensure that NASAs partners are fully ready for the launch of EFT-1 at the earliest opportunity on the manifest.

To that end, the core and starboard boosters for the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch Orion into space for the first time arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this month. That leaves just one booster still in production at the companys Decatur, Ala., facility. Its scheduled to arrive in April along with the rockets upper stage, and will join the other boosters inside ULAs Horizontal Integration Facility for processing and testing.

Meanwhile, in the spacecraft factory at Kennedy Space Center the Operations and Checkout Facility Orion itself is making progress of its own.

After completing construction on the service module in January, engineers at Kennedy moved on to testing whether it could withstand the stresses that it will endure during launch and in space. The service module sits below Orions crew module and above the rocket, and would normally provide power and in-space propulsion and house a number of other systems that arent needed on this first flight. Despite being pushed and twisted in multiple directions, the service module came through the tests not only unscathed, but earlier than planned.

Once the service module testing was completed, it was the crew modules turn.

Almost all of the spacecrafts avionics components have been installed, and system by system, the engineers are powering them up. Its a methodical, deliberate process, in which each connector is checked individually before theyre hooked up and the system turned on to make sure each battery, heater, camera and processor to name a few works on its own, before the entire system is turned on together. Otherwise, one faulty cable could damage an entire, one-of-a-kind system.

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Orion Getting Closer To Its First Trip To Space