Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Orion Program Update: NASA Awards Contract for Crew Modules - revised

NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado a contract for at least six, and as many as twelve Orion spacecraft for the Artemis lunar exploration missions.The capsules for Artemis Missions III - V will be produced for 2.7 billion dollars; while those for Missions VI through VIII will be produced for 1.9 billion.The long-term plan is to reuse each crew module at least once.*
As for the Artemis I and​ II Orion capsules, NASA says that work is well underway on them:
Engineers at Kennedy Space Center have completed and attached the crew and service modules for Artemis I and are preparing the spacecraft for environmental testing.Meanwhile, teams at Kennedy are integrating thousands of parts into the crew module for Artemis II in preparation for the first crewed Artemis mission.*
Artemis I is planned for a 2020 launch on a test mission of the integrated Orion capsule, European Service Module and Space Launch System rocket. Artemis II will be the first crewed Orion spacecraft mission, taking astronauts to a high orbit 40,000 miles from the Moon, the farthest humans have gone  from Earth.Artemis III is planned to land the first woman and a male crewmate on the Moon by 2024.These Missions have the ultimate goal of enabling further crewed exploration of the solar system, with the next step being the Mars system.*
Lockheed Martin (LMT)



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