NASA Orion Buying Spree Makes Texas Happy Again
NASA Awards Lockheed Martin Contract for Six Orion Spacecraft, Lockheed Martin
“NASA and Lockheed Martin have finalized a contract for the production and operations of six Orion spacecraft missions and the ability to order up to 12 in total. Orion is NASA’s deep space exploration spaceship that will carry astronauts from Earth to the Moon and bring them safely home. Lockheed Martin has been the prime contractor during the development phase of the Orion program.”
NASA Commits to Long-term Artemis Missions with Orion Production Contract, NASA
“This is a great day for the men and women at Johnson Space Center. They are crucial to our national space program, and have an undeniable legacy and record of success in advancing America’s leadership in the human exploration of space,” said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. “I am pleased that Administrator Bridenstine has heeded my calls and is taking significant steps to ensure that Johnson continues to grow with the exciting future of manned exploration that lies ahead. More needs to be done, and I look forward to production ramping up in the weeks and months to come and to more opportunities with NASA.”
“As the only vehicle capable of deep space exploration, the Orion spacecraft is critical to America’s continued leadership,” said Rep. Brian Babin of Texas. “Today’s announcement signals that we are moving closer towards operation and production. While I look forward to learning more of the details, it’s encouraging to see that this program is moving along as it should be. I am proud of the Orion program team and contractor partners at Johnson Space Center as they move towards getting the vehicle ‘flight ready.’ Without the brilliant minds and extraordinary leadership of the hard-working men and women at Johnson, our country would not be the preeminent spacefaring nation in the world.”
“The men and women at Johnson Space Center represent the best and brightest scientific minds, and I’m confident with additional Orion spacecraft they will push the limits of exploration to the Moon and beyond,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. “I commend the Trump Administration for recognizing the importance and tradition of Houston as the center of human spaceflight and exploring the next frontier.”
Keith’s note: Does NASA even have a confirmed budget to build the 6 SLS rockets to actually launch these 6 Orions to Gateway? Meanwhile, It certainly looks like NASA Legislative Affairs made up for dropping the ball during the Human Lunar Lander announcement in Huntsville by getting happy quotes from the major Texas politicians.
– Texas Responds To NASA Lunar Lander Management In Alabama, earlier post
– Friday’s NASA Lunar Lander Event Stirs Up Some Dust (Update), earlier post
So many things about this have me slapping my head and wondering “WTF?”
NASA is still wearing noise-canceling headphones.
Development costs aside, each of these vehicles is around $700B. And, yes, here comes the “SX is cheaper!” comparison: F9 was developed for around $400B. An entire rocket family. And, a new, cutting edge engine, too.
So $700B gets us what? A new ‘deep space’ craft that is single use.
The future is in reusability. This contract comes into fruition, NASA will have either several/many Orion spacecraft, or at the least many of them in various stages of construction, making, just as in the case of SLS, the sunk cost huge; and NASA does not deal with the road more traveled very well, as we know.
I have always felt that there is huge advantage in ‘Big Government’, in which we pool our resources. I also believe that is good to admit our mistakes, and in this case, I have been wrong, wrong, wrong. Those folks screaming “Private Enterprise can do a better job!” ?
They have been Right, Right, Right.
“So $700B gets us what? A new ‘deep space’ craft that is single use. The future is in reusability.” The Orion command module, which is what the press releases are about, is purportedly reusable, with a design lifetime of 30 years:
https://www.space.com/21541…
The rest of the rocket is, of course, not…
Also, I think you meant to write $700M, no?
That article is six years old, and actually doesn’t say the Orion has a design lifetime of 30 years. It quotes someone saying, “”If the vehicle’s designed to be viable for 30 years…” and then describing the requirements that implies. Also the Orion capsules aren’t fully reusable, and I have some doubts on how much time and effort will be required to refurbish them. In any case, I think number of flights, not years, will be the real metric when it comes to lifetime.
What he said.
And in any event, taking the totality of the Orion system: sure, it’s reusable. So was STS, and the boosters. Hardly worth the bother.
The bar has been lifted. NASA should take the time to notice.
Many here have commented that Starship will fly before or concurrently with SLS (for the naysayers, F9 and F9H are already in the sky, and reusable; yes, I know that comparisons are far from exact). Perhaps, finally, the mainstream news will pickup on this obvious disparity.
And at the same time, two capsules will fly, both with reusability ratings vastly higher than Orion. Again, will anyone notice?
If I can see that future, why can’t NASA?
Well, not to gratuitously argue when I agree with the general points in your post, but the Orion capsule is the *only* thing that’s purportedly reusable. Everything else is single use, including the solids. The Orion capsule will require refurbishment, but the Dragon 2 and Crew Dragon 2 will require it as well. It’s possible (likely?) that they will have quicker turnaround than Orion given the differences in thermal protection system, but it won’t be airline-like operations. Is SpaceX ahead of the curve on reusability? Of course.
Folks at NASA surely can see what’s going on, but to keep it objective, SpaceX to date has not actually flown humans into space. This will likely change next year, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding.
Speculating wildly, I’m guessing NASA will likely stick with the Orion capsule for some time. If there are launch vehicle changes I’m thinking they’ll be incremental. For example, if the Super Heavy is successful, perhaps they’ll transition to use that as the SLS first stage, but retain the SLS second stage, service module, and Orion. That’s off the top of my head, I don’t know if that makes sense at all from a technical standpoint.
At some point I imagine NASA will go with a full up stack from SpaceX or Blue Origin, but with their own spin on it… and I’m thinking that’ll be on the order of 10 years from now. Assuming NASA is still in the HSF business then…
I believe they already reused one of the SpaceX Dragon capsules for the COTS program.
The last Dragon capsule was on its third flight to the ISS. I believe at least one other has made two flights.
Yes, I read the article too quickly. The point being made was that the design would remain viable for 30 years. Not that an individual capsule would. I recalled seeing some time ago the number of reuses expected, but I couldn’t find anything in my quick search. That article was the closest I came up with. I expect it is less than 10, greater than 1 😉 And yes there will be refurbishment required. Kind of like the space shuttle without the engines or cargo bay… 😉
NASA is living 50 years in the past, but it will take them a few more years before they catch up to 1969.
Where did you get this figure of 400 *BILLION* for Falcon 9?
Where did you get the label “Deep Space craft”?
Orion is a reentry vehicle with (correct me if I’m wrong please) something like a three month flight life. That makes 80% of it’s design cis-lunar return.
Orbiter 2012’s Arrow Freighter is my idea of a deep space craft.
I want to put a SpaceX skin on it. 😉
Issue isn’t the budget, Keith, it is the appropriation. Congress cannot bind future Congresses with an appropriation act. There’s generally a provision that the contract ceases if appropriations are not made. When/if SLS finally craters I can see them kicking the Orion ball down the field a bit by modifying for commercial launch., however.
My cynical guess: no Orion will ever launch a crew.
Is Lockheed taking the service module back in house from ESA? Maybe they give it an upgrade like a usable propellant load. The congressman do realize as a vehicle goes into stable production the NASA inline and oversight work should ramp down hopefully freeing them up to support lunar surface ops and other things. JSC is merely money laundering to flow the cash to Lockheed Colorado and other suppliers across the country.
It is too late to upgraded the service module. It will just delay the Orion program while SpaceX will be flying the crewed Dragon.
Gotta work fast to rise the stakes so high Congress won’t be able to kill the SLS/Orion/Gateway when Starship starts flying. Next will be an announcement that ESA will be building six service modules to go along. Then it becomes an international issue to kill the pork flow.?
Maybe SpaceX will offered rides to the Lunar surface and back to ESA in the future. Then ESA can either cancel the builds for the obsolete service modules or look really silly building hardware to nowhere with lots of Euros.
Remember, this is Europe, they will need the work for their aerospace workers, especially if SpaceX takes away a lot of their commercial launches, so they will build them anyway to keep them employed.
I’m sure SpaceX can offer a configuration of Starship with Orion on top, they did try to offer Falcon Heavy as Orion launcher in the past.
Why on top when you could fit all six inside the cargo faring?
Depends on the mindset of the majority and the cost/destination of a Starship flight. Currently, SLS/Orion suffer from mission shrink. Once Starship is flying that’ll get way worse.
I think of some YouTube video I saw once recently depicting a Photoshop-edited painting of a growing SpaceX Moon base with half a dozen Starships in view and a cheesy video sequence of the itty-bitty LDM of NASA Artemis’ first mission descending and landing on a pad. 😉
I’ve long joked that when a NASA astronaut first steps out of a spacecraft onto the surface of Mars, Elon Musk will slap him on the shoulder and hand him a beer.
That was going to be my first question, Keith, when I saw this headline on SpacePolicy.com just now. What will fly these Orion Spacecraft?
My answer: I predict that two of them will fly actual missions on SLS. EM-1 and a human moon landing will be late but will fly. The rest will fly on SUPER GUPPY to Air and Space museums all over the country. SLS/Orion are great spacecraft, but they won’t fly more than twice and will go down in history as the most wasteful government appropriations program in history.
Unless SLS EVER blows up on the pad, then it’s done for that instant, or if EM-1 slips to after #Dearmoon…neither of which are likely.
Apparently it won’t fit on the Super Guppy.
Nah. The Orion can fitted inside the Super Guppy. But that exceeds the payload capacity of the Super Guppy.
However you could fly the Orion capsule in the Airbus Beluga or maybe the Boeing Dreamlifter.
Thanks for the clarification. The point of my sarcasm still applies. 😉
That link is actually dead- is there a typo, or something? I tried the obvious ones?
spacepolicyonline.com ?
Sorry. I meant to reference Marcia Smith’s Space Policy Online.
It was reported here, Space Policy Online, and Space Flight Now. I was randomly bouncing around between those looking for news and happened to hit that spo first. I glanced quickly at SpaceFlight Now and then ran straight here to see what Keith and the rest of you folks had to say. 😉
Fly 33 vehicles safely and then we can really start to discuss appropriate safety statistics. Until then risks are high, which must be understood.
The other problem is that goals rather nebulous. WHAT exactly will these be used for? Science? Exploration? Or something more much permanent which no one in the government understands or has signed up for?
Reminds me of Apollo all over again. What a waste, and an archaic one at that.