Guy Norris Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft prepares for upgrades as plans for the NASA Artemis I test mission enter the home stretch.
Guy Norris
The heat-shield skin for Artemis III, pictured after autoclave curing in Lockheed Martin’s facility in Sunnyvale, California, will be completed by adding interior titanium stiffeners and ablative Avcoat blocks to the exterior. Credit: Lockheed Martin
If all goes to according to plan, Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft will be moving to the vast Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center as early as mid-September in preparation for completion of NASA’s first—and much-anticipated—Space Launch System rocket.
While it remains unclear if the vehicle can still be launched in time to conduct the uncrewed Artemis I deep-space test mission by the agency’s year-end target, the integration of the spacecraft, together with its launch abort stack and European-built service module, is in itself a major program step, says Michael Hawes, vice president and Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin.
“It’s going to be a huge milestone,” says Hawes, speaking to Aviation Week at the recent Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “We still have some internal work that we’ll still have to do, but it will actually be in the [Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)], and we’ll have an entire Artemis I stack here in just a few weeks.”
At the start of September, crews at the Launch Abort System Facility were preparing to install the last of four ogive fairings that cover the Orion module and protect the crew from sound and vibration during launch. The panels, one of which incorporates a hatch for crew access, will detach from the Space Launch System (SLS) when the 44-ft.-tall launch abort system is jettisoned shortly after liftoff. Once all four panel sections are installed, the entire Orion assembly will move to the VAB for integration.
Ogive panels for the Orion Artemis I mission were installed inside the Launch Abort Facility at Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA
Behind the scenes, other preparations have begun in the build-up to launch. On Aug. 30, NASA completed the first power-up of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage and other propulsion systems, representing the next phase of the integrated test and checkout campaign.
Following assembly, the SLS stack is due to move to Launch Complex 39B for a wet dress rehearsal. In this exercise, the rocket will be filled with fuel and will undergo a complete launch sequence simulation that covers everything but engine ignition. The vehicle will then return to the VAB for final preparations and closeouts.
The industrial and NASA SLS support teams are also setting up for mission operations. Commenting on a program board meeting held at the end of August, Hawes says: “One of the things we approved was a mission support plan in terms of where the engineers will be: Who’s out in Denver, who’s going to be at the launch [and] who’s going to be in Houston, in terms of their formal mission roles. Those are the things that you do close into launch, so that’s really got the excitement going.”
Meanwhile, Lockheed is refining plans for a three-step upgrade program for the initial batch of crew vehicles and follow-on production units. “First and foremost is the upgrade from vehicle one to [vehicle ] two, which rolls in the full suite of life support equipment—that’s mostly the air revitalization system for CO2 scrubbing, oxygen and nitrogen,” says Hawes. “We add those components that are really tied to the crew, so we add display screens and the hand controllers.”
Following the first crewed flight with Artemis II, a four-person lunar flyby mission, further upgrades are planned for the subsequent Artemis III lunar landing mission. “[Vehicle] two to three is adding the docking system,” Hawes says. “Artemis III we will dock to either the Gateway, or we go back to a lander. After that, the vehicle is pretty stable.”
The third upgrade phase is mainly targeted at enhancing reusability. “We already will reuse from [vehicle] one to two by using about half the avionics,” he adds. “But, the challenge there is that ties us to some of the components with, as we say, an iron bar between one and two. And after we fly Artemis III, the module structure will get reused in vehicle six [for Artemis VI]—although there will be some components still swapped out.”
Beyond this third “bucket” of upgrades, Lockheed is conducting studies to further increase reusability that include using conformal coating connectors to protect equipment that is housed between the pressure vessel and the back shell. That area of the spacecraft is not watertight, and the use of conformal connectors will “significantly diminish the impact of the salt [environment],” Hawes says.
Operational changes are also being studied to minimize exposure to the saltwater atmosphere after splashdown and during refurbishment. “How quickly do we get it from the ground team and the Navy?” Hawes adds. “How quickly can we get into cleaning it, purging and pulling the systems apart so that we know what’s there to be done? We have a good plan that we started—we call it component-level reuse and module-level reuse—but we still think there’s more. And that’s a big factor in making the system more sustainable and affordable in the long term.”
All of the improvements will be incorporated into the production units ordered in 2019 under NASA’s Orion Production and Operations Contract. Under the terms of this indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) deal, NASA initially placed orders for three spacecraft for Artemis missions III-V worth $2.7 billion. The agency also plans to order three additional Orion spacecraft during fiscal 2022, for Artemis missions VI-VIII, that will cost an additional $1.9 billion. Up to six more Orion spacecraft may be ordered through Sept. 30, 2030, under the IDIQ contract.
Welding of the pressure vessel for the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis III mission was completed in late August. The unit is expected to be transferred in early October from Lockheed’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans to the company’s expanding Kennedy Space Center site in Florida. The company has also completed the composite-skinned Avcoat ablative heat shield that integrates blocks of the resin and fiberglass matrix into a titanium skeleton frame.
“A big objective of this mission is demonstrating full lunar-return-speed capability,” says Hawes, referencing the 5,200F peak temperature the Orion heat shield is expected to encounter as it reenters Earth’s atmosphere at 24,700 mph—some 7,700 mph faster than space vehicles reentering from low Earth orbit. The Avcoat is a reformulated version of the same material used for the Apollo program, but on Orion it is integrated into the heat shield in blocks rather than using a labor-intensive process of build-up with individually filled honeycomb cells.
“We had to learn how to do repairs because that material is prone to cracking in the honeycomb structure,” he adds. “So now we have made it out of blocks, similar to the [space shuttle] tile, and the shop at Kennedy machines [it] into the right shapes. There are 186 blocks mounted on top of the composite shell, and then there’s gap-filler material in between each one of the blocks. So it’s a different manufacturing technique and we’re very confident in it, but getting that test time will be a big deal.”
Lockheed has also completed the inner joining ring that will connect the Orion crew module for Artemis III with the European Space Agency (ESA)-made service module (ESM). “We’ve also made a number of deliveries to ESA for ESM 3,” Hawes says. “In fact, NASA provides several components to ESA through the Lockheed Martin contract. So far, we have delivered communications cards, harnesses and engines—purchased through a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne.” In all, the ESM will house 33 separate thrusters, 24 of which are for attitude control.
“We are also already machining the panels for the Artemis IV vehicle,” Hawes says. Cone panels, which include openings for windows, for this vehicle are being made by Amro Fabricating in South El Monte, California, while the aluminum aft bulkhead, tunnel and barrel sections are being manufactured by Ingersoll in Rockford, Illinois.
“They are being machined now, and then the parts will be sent individually to Michoud to be welded,” Hawes says. “We also already have the ingots of aluminum and titanium for [the Orion for Artemis V]. So, from that standpoint, we really are starting to see the cadence of these major pieces being ordered in bulk and being able to support the flow that we still expect NASA to be on with this annual flight schedule. That’s what we’re driving to.”
For the longer-term future, Lockheed is also looking at other modifications to the vehicle as the science mission evolves, such as whether cubesat deployers could be mounted externally. “We have looked at some of those things, conceptually, that I think could end up happening, but we don’t have that as a specification from NASA,” Hawes says.
Ultimately, Lockheed expects that Orion could also be adapted for potential commercial applications. “NASA is looking at different service models,” Hawes adds. “Look at the Human Landing System, which was bid as a service mission. So, we do believe that there’s probably a path that you could talk about Orion as a service, or even as an alternate revenue stream of Orion missions sold to other customers. We talk to NASA about those options and see, as they’re thinking more about moving in those directions, how we could actually work to accommodate them.”
However, the focus for the immediate future is on proving the capabilities of the world’s first true deep-space-class spacecraft. “We’re going to fly, and it’s not going to be ground tests and analysis data anymore,” Hawes says. “It’s going to be flight testing, and it’s going to be data in the lunar environment, likely for weeks. You have either a 28-day mission or a 42-day mission, and 4-6 weeks in the lunar environment will give you all that data on how the vehicle operates. Then we shall see if we can actually expand that capability and fly different thermal profiles. Maybe we don’t have to be that conservative. I think that’s just going to be a huge deal for the program.”
