NASA’s Deep-Space Crew capsule may take months to recover from component failure

Engineers are in the race to fix a failed piece of equipment before its first flight into space on NASA’s future deep-space crew capsule Orion. It may take months of work to change and fix it. Right now, NASA engineers and Orion’s primary contractor, Lock Kehid Martin, are trying to figure out the best way to fix the component and how long it will take to repair it.

In early November, engineers at Lockheed Martin working on Orion noticed that the internal power component of the vehicle had failed, according to a presentation via internal email and internal PowerPoint. Edge. The component is inside one of the spacecraft’s eight power and data units, or PDUs. According to the email, the PDU for Orion is the “main power / data boxes”, which are responsible for activating the key systems required by Orion during the flight.

Orion is an important part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send the first woman and the next man to the moon by 2024. The cone-shaped capsule is designed to launch on top of a future rocket called the Space System, or SLS. , The vehicle that NASA has been building for the past decade. To test the capabilities of both of these systems, NASA plans to launch a screwed Orion capsule on top of the SLS in the first flight of the rocket in late 2021 – a Mission Artemis I.

The SLS still has many key tests left before that flight, while the Orion Capsule is preparing to fly on that first mission, waiting in Florida at NASA’s operation and checkout facility at the Kennedy Space Center. On December 8, NASA planned to move the Ocean capsule to a multi-payload processing facility (MPPF) at KSC, although the issue could delay the rollout. NASA pointed out when asked for comment Edge On a short blog post outlining the failure.

“The PDU is still fully operational without this pointless channel while we continue to have immediate difficulty shooting cards while continuing close-out activities on Orion,” a Lockheed Martin representative said in a statement. Edge. “We are fully committed to seeing Orion launch next year on its historic Artemis I mission to the moon.

Photo by Ben Smegelsky / NASA

Replacing a PDU is not easy. The component is difficult to reach: it is located inside an adapter that connects Orion to its service module – a cylindrical trunk that provides support, propulsion and power to the capsule during its journey through space. To move to PDU, Lockheed Martin may remove the Orion Crew capsule from its service module, but it is a lengthy process that will take up to a year. It will take a maximum of nine months to isolate the vehicle, plus According to the presentation, three months for subsequent testing.

Leheid Kahid has another option, but it has never been done before and can take additional risks, Lockheed Martin engineers admit in their presentation. To do that, engineers have to tunnel through the outer part of the adapter, removing some of the adapter’s outer panels to get to the PDU. The panels were not designed to be removed this way, but if engineers figured out a way, it could only take four months to complete the scenario.

The third option is that Lockheed Martin and NASA can fly like Orion capsules. The PDU failed in such a way that it lost redundancy within the unit, so it could still function. But in a risky agency like NASA, flying a vehicle without a backup plan is not exactly an attractive option. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.

If engineers choose to remove Orion from its service module, the first flight of the capsule on the SLS could be delayed from its current November 2021 date. But SLSA has experienced its own set of delays: it was the first time to fly. 2017 but not done yet. It is not clear if SLS itself will make a flight date of November 2021; The key test of the rocket coming at the end of the year has been pushed back, with no new target date set. So it is possible that Lockheed could fix Martin and NASA Orion before the SLS was ready to fly.

Any further delay in Artemis adds uncertainty to NASA’s lunar landing timeline. NASA expects astronauts to land on the moon by 2024, although many experts doubt such a mission could be pulled in time. Artemis I am sensitive to other potential delays, but component failure adds another level of uncertainty when Orion and SLS Combo come off the field.

November 30, 7:00 pm ET Update: The story has been updated to include information from Lockheed Martin’s statement.