Next Generation of Orion Spacecraft in Production for Future Artemis Missions
NEW ORLEANS (NASA PR) — Over the next decade, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will carry astronauts during Artemis missions to the Moon to help prepare for human missions to Mars. Work on the spacecraft for Artemis I is nearly complete, Artemis II is well underway, and NASA is making progress on vehicles for the missions beyond.
The agency recently completed welding on the Artemis III Orion pressure vessel, the underlying frame of the air-tight capsule for astronauts called the crew module. This structure is the first major piece of hardware in Orion’s production phase with lead contractor Lockheed Martin.
“NASA is shifting its focus from the development phase to the production phase for the Orion spacecraft to enable a long-term presence on and around the Moon,” said Cathy Koerner, Orion program manager.
The development phase — called design, development, test, and evaluation (DDT&E) — is when Orion’s requirements are defined, the design undergoes review and refinement, and the spacecraft and its systems go through rigorous testing.
“All of the intensive testing we’ve done has proven out the design of Orion’s structure,” said Stu McClung, chief of staff for Orion program, planning, and control. “A structure that’s well understood and defined gives us high confidence to move forward into the production phase.”
Each component of Orion has undergone thorough testing since the beginning of DDT&E to prepare Orion for this transition. This includes Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion’s first flight test in 2014 that demonstrated its space-worthiness in a high-Earth orbit, and tested the spacecraft’s heat shield during entry into Earth’s atmosphere and the capsule’s recovery systems.
NASA has also completed successful testing of Orion’s parachute system, as well as the launch abort system with two flight tests known as Pad Abort-1 and Ascent Abort-2. Simulated in-space environments testing also verified that Orion’s systems will perform as expected during Artemis missions, among countless other tests of the spacecraft.
The DDT&E phase will officially conclude with the Artemis II mission, the first test flight with crew. Although no structural changes on the vehicle are expected to come from Artemis I and II, the mission outcomes may drive minor changes or upgrades into subsequent builds.
“As we fly, we will learn and adapt the spacecraft to the missions as needed,” said Assistant Orion Program Manager Paul Marshall. This could include modifying crew systems or crew interfaces to help astronauts perform future missions as smoothly as possible.
In the production phase, engineers will apply refinements to Orion’s design to ensure that manufacturing and assembly are as efficient as possible. One of many improvements was reducing the number of welded pieces that make up Orion’s pressure vessel. The pressure vessel’s original design had 33 welded pieces, which was streamlined to seven for Artemis I and up, to improve manufacturability and save more than 700 pounds of excess weight.
With these seven welds recently completed on the Artemis III pressure vessel at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans — and structural design changes and testing complete — a more efficient and streamlined production line for spacecraft begins. Under the Orion Production and Operations Contract (OPOC) awarded to Lockheed Martin, NASA committed to ordering a minimum of six and a maximum of 12 Orion spacecraft. The agency ordered three Orion spacecraft in 2019 for Artemis missions III through V, and plans to order three additional Orion capsules in fiscal year 2022 for Artemis missions VI through VIII.
“Our strategy to go from design and development to production focuses on optimization by making changes in several different areas to emerge with a more efficient flow,” said Kelly DeFazio, program director for production operations at Lockheed Martin.
Some examples of optimizing Orion production include:
- Changing the organizational structure of employees from a large, integrated product team structure centered on design, development, and qualification, to smaller multifunctional work teams focused on production throughput and quality of product.
- Incorporating systems to identify and address constraints in production flow, and the use of smart tools like augmented reality on the production floor.
- The opening of Lockheed Martin’s Spacecraft, Test, Assembly and Resource (STAR) Center in Titusville, Florida, earlier this summer to streamline manufacturing capacity.
- Reusing Orion crew modules and high-value systems, combined with the ability to bulk buy material and components, which contribute to considerable cost reductions compared to spacecraft produced under DDT&E.
“Our production plan activates unique manufacturing efficiencies that ensure we achieve the desired mission cadence while driving cost reductions,” said Marshall.
Those savings give NASA more resources to invest in developing the elements needed to pursue the lunar exploration campaign in the coming years, he added.
“The transition into production provides the opportunity to shift the focus of the Orion workforce to defining, implementing, and executing the exploration missions that Orion is built to fly,” said Marshall.
Learn more about NASA’s Orion spacecraft at:
19 responses to “Next Generation of Orion Spacecraft in Production for Future Artemis Missions”
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Going into production phase with a fully tested spacecraft—-that has never flown. Huh what??? The 2014 Potemkin thing counts???
No one would consider building a single spacecraft every year or two going into production. SpaceX is doing production with its Starships. The Orion Capsules are only very expensive hand crafted prototypes, as expensive as the Shuttle Orbiters were, but a lot less useful.
That’s why the headline is so jarring to me.
I wanted an Energia Buran type Shuttle II… with SSMEs is pods. Oh well. I want someone besides Branson pushing for Winged spaceflight
Planet Kerbel is the only state willing to run a space program that wold fit in with Buran-Energya. On paper it was a well thought out system, but it had no system of payloads like even the American STS did. Buran-Energya was a space transportation system in search of a $100 billion dollar a year space program. The Soviet Union would have to have have dissolved about 30 motorized rifle divisions, about 10 squadrons of frontal combat aviation, and their rapid deployment force to pay for it. Nothing like that was ever going to happen. Space was always a side show, and from a nation state POV, it still is compared to the real show of armaments.
And Russia can’t really afford any new armaments in any quantity now. So that tells you what priority space is going to have if it can’t keep bringing in at least enough money to cover its own reduced program requirements.
In no way was I talking now. The USSR was a totally different beast than Russia is today.
Doing concrete work, I glance at local weather and then hurricane forecast every morning. Had to think of your Boca Chica hurricane predictions when I saw that it is in one possible path of a tropical storm over the next day or so.. First glance before zooming in I thought the storm was on top of Boca Chica.
For those not familiar with hurricane strengths, a tropical storm is the intensity just under a cat 1 hurricane.
Yes, there used to be a Civil War battlefield there, and embattlements, but it disappeared after a couple of hurricanes rearranged the landscape.
Then there was a very famous resort that disappeared after a hurricane storm surge wiped the area clean and rearranged the landscape in 1933. Because of the damage the federal government cut Boca Chica off from Padre Island by dredging a channel to create the Port of Brownsville.
The small resort town that was there before Boca Chica Village, replacing the resort, was all but wiped out by a hurricane in 1967 rearranged the landscape. They never were able to replace the water system that was destroyed. All the water is now brought in by truck. Most of the houses date from after that event.
Someday another hurricane will come through and rearrange everything again. After all it is just river sand, part of the Rio Grande delta, with some grasses and weeds stabilizing it between storms. When that happens there will be scrap steel everywhere. The tents being used for storage probably will simply blow away…
There was a ‘first’ generation Orion?
But then, there was a ‘Block 1’ Apollo version that never flew…as Virgil Grissom himself once predicted.
It would easier to understand. If you consider each Orion capsule as their own Block. Starting with the boilerplate Block 0 of Exploration Flight Test-1.
Right now Artemis III going up to space is not a done deal, IMO.
Museums of the world, get your letters of interest in early!
Betcha lunch by the time the 3rd Orion launches, it goes up on a Starship.
To be delivered to the Lunar museum of spaceflight as a gate guard?
I’d bet lunch it doesn’t for various reasons, mainly compatibility of mission ideology. This lunch bet being a decent restaurant or dollar menu at McDs??
Hey! I’d be happy to lose this bet. How about I tell you when I come out to Florida for a SpaceX launch and we figure out how to catch lunch. You can bet I’ll be going to Texas for one of the launches so if you’re going to go, we can go get some Tx BBQ. That sounds like a win win to me.
I’m privileged to watch F9 launches from my back yard at about 60 miles or so. Other side of Orlando from the cape. Suburbs of Dundee if being specific. Let me know when you’re going to be in the area and I’ll try to make it. Can’t always with a business.
ltolmasonry at gmail dot com
If it winds up as a museum gate guard, the museum in question will be here on Earth. Lunar museums will be for things that have something consequential to do with the Moon.
I don’t think it’s going to launch. I think it will be replaced by a Dear Moon-class Starship.
Should that go off well, you might be right. Let’s see.