|
 The capsule, built by Lockheed Martin <LMT.N>, will fly without a
crew on its debut test run scheduled for Dec. 4, from Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station in Florida.
Orion will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy
rocket, built by a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing <BA.N>.
The test flight follows unrelated accidents last week involving two
commercial space companies. On Oct. 28, an unmanned Orbital Sciences
<ORB.N> Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff from Virginia,
destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station
for NASA.
On Friday, a pilot with Mojave, California-based Scaled Composites,
a unit of Northrop Grumman <NOC.N>, died, and another was injured
during a test flight of SpaceShipTwo. The suborbital space plane,
owned by Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's
London-based Virgin Group, was destroyed in the crash.
 “Space operations is hard and they proved that last week ... It’s a
tough business we’re in,” NASA Deputy Associate Administrator
William Hill said during a press conference at the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida.
“We have not changed any of our plans,” added Orion program manager
Mark Geyer. “It just reminds us of the risk.”
For its test flight, Orion will fly as far as 3,600 miles (5,794 km)
from Earth so that it can slam back into the atmosphere at a speed
of about 20,000 mph (32,187 kph). The planned 4.5-hour flight will
end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
[to top of second column] |
The mission is intended to test Orion’s heat shield, parachutes,
computers and other equipment prior to the first crewed mission
around 2021.
"This is really our first step in our journey to Mars," Hill said.
NASA is spending about $375 million on the test flight, not
including the cost of the capsule. Total spending on Orion,
including more than $8 billion under the canceled Constellation moon
program, is expected to reach about $15 billion.
NASA plans to use Orion capsules and its Space Launch System rocket,
currently under development in a separate $15 billion effort to fly
astronauts to an asteroid, the moon, and eventually, Mars.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
