Updates Orion (MPCV) Updates and Discussion

[MaverickSawyer]

Was the right side plume supposed to change partway through the burn like that?

 

[orb]

 

[francisdrake]

Orion Test Article on the Move

Thanks for sharing!
I am a little confused what I see here. According to the Youtube description it is the service module test article. What puzzles me is that one side seems to be covered with blank brown metal sheets, while the other side shows the white zig-zag pipes of the heat radiator.
Isn't the heat radiator all around?
Or did they just omit the covers on one side, to better see if pipes are shaken loose during the vibration test?

 

[Nicholas Kang]

NASA and Industry Team Successfully Test Orion Launch Abort Motor

Orbital ATK-Developed Launch Abort Motor Test Qualifies Motor for Flight, Ensures Astronaut Safety

Dulles, Virginia 15 June 2017 – Orbital ATK (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, along with NASA and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), successfully performed a ground firing test of the abort motor for NASA’s Orion spacecraft Launch Abort System (LAS) at Orbital ATK’s facility in Promontory, Utah. The launch abort motor is a major part of the LAS, which provides a tremendous enhancement in spaceflight safety for astronauts.

The abort motor, which stands over 17 feet tall and spans three feet in diameter, has a manifold with four exhaust nozzles. It was fixed into a vertical test stand with its nozzles pointing skyward. Upon ignition, the abort motor fired for five seconds with the exhaust plume flames reaching up to 100 feet in height. The high-impulse motor was specifically developed so the majority of its propellant would be expended in the first three seconds, burning three times faster than a typical motor of this size and delivering the thrust needed to pull the crew module safely away from its launch vehicle. The motor reached 400,000 pounds of thrust in one eighth of a second, as expected.

[ame="https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/875428347786006528"]Jeff Foust on Twitter: "Launch abort system motor fires, creating a plume of emojis. https://t.co/JUhS3Jvyxo"[/ame]

Orbital ATK’s next major abort motor milestones include the QM-2 launch abort motor test firing scheduled for late next year in Utah, and the Ascent Abort-2 Flight Test (AA-2) scheduled to take place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in 2019. Previous large-scale tests of the launch abort motor include a development motor test in 2008 and a test of the complete LAS in 2010.

Orbital ATK is responsible for the launch abort motor through a contract to Lockheed Martin – Orion’s prime contractor. The Orion LAS program is managed out of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. Orbital ATK produces the abort motor at its Magna, Utah, facility and the attitude control motor at its Elkton, Maryland, facility. The company also manufactures the composite case for the abort motor at its facility in Clearfield, Utah.

 

[Notebook]

18 September 2018
Last week at the Airbus integration hall in Bremen, Germany, technicians installed the last radiator on the European Service Module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft marking the module’s finished integration.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/H...n_s_first_Service_Module_integration_complete

 

[4throck]

I'd very much like to see this thing fly :thumbup:

 

[barrygolden]

a friend at JSC told me they're going to install a camera on the end of a solar panel to show the outside of Orion in flight. " Golden Eye"

 

[Notebook]

Tests complete for Orion.

The first Orion spacecraft that will fly around the Moon as part of Artemis to return humans to the lunar surface has finished its space-environment tests at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio, USA.

http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/03/Tests_complete_for_Orion

 

[4throck]

That's good news

 

[barrygolden]

Yes that is great news. Also I know I've been outspoken about the SLS engine program but NASA did take shipment on 6 new RS 25 engines that are being assembled at Stennis and will be tested in the single engine test stand

 

[4throck]

As things are, it's best that they fly what they have. Otherwise the hardware will just sit on a museum (at best).

 

[Notebook]

27/3/2020
Last stop before launch: Orion passes tests and returns to Kennedy Space Center

http://www.esa.int/Science_Explorat...ses_tests_and_returns_to_Kennedy_Space_Center