Posts Tagged ‘orion’
Meet NASA’s New Deep Space Rocket
The Space Launch System will be the next NASA-administered launch vehicle to take humans into Earth orbit and beyond
Resembling the Saturn V in both format and capabilities, the SLS is based around technology developed and honed in the Space Shuttle program. Its core stage rockets are the same RS-25 the shuttle used for main engines, and its strap-on solid rocket boosters are also similar to those used on the shuttle; these solid boosters will be used for initial flights, but NASA hopes to develop cheaper liquid-fueled detachable boosters for later missions. The J-2X engine used in the upper stage is similar to one developed by Rocketdyne for the Saturn V.
The SLS's payload capacity will range from 70 to 130 metric tons, depending on launch configurations, making it the most powerful launch system since the Saturn V. By utilizing different combinations of the core, upper and booster stages, NASA will be able to efficiently adapt the SLS to a variety of mission types.
And of course, the SLS will carry the Orion multi-use crew capsule, an offshoot from the now-defunct Constellation project. It is capable of carrying a crew of four to six astronauts.
NASA released a computer animation of the new SLS taking to the skies:
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Video: The Next American Space Vehicle Gets Dunked
Aren't you jealous? Look at that cool, clear water ...
NASA just completed building a million-gallon pool to test these splashes, and managers have been dunking a test model of the space agency’s next crew vehicle.
The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle “boilerplate test article,” which weighs 22,700 pounds, is attached to a special gantry — think of a person swinging on a rope out over a lake — and dropped into the Hydro Impact Basin. In the video below, it was going about 24 mph at impact.
The $1.7 million Hydro Impact Basin will help prove that the Orion capsule can withstand a splashdown. Other future space capsules will also be tested in this manner.
NASA is planning additional drop tests at higher speeds throughout the summer.
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NASA Unveils Its New Deep Space Exploration Vehicle
Which is also its old deep space exploration vehicle
The announcement, in some respects, is anticlimactic. that Lockheed was still working on Orion, and it appeared all along that the company knew something that we didn’t--you don’t build a 41,000-square-foot Space Operations Simulation Center to train astronauts on a vehicle that you believe will be axed. And while the final MPCV won’t be Orion down to the very last bolt, it won’t be a wildly re-imagined spacecraft either.
That’s probably a good thing. NASA is temporarily out of the manned space business after the last shuttle mission launches in July, and it appears private spacefaring companies are ready to take over that role within this decade. So it’s time for NASA to look to a variety of missions beyond low-Earth orbit, and a multi-purpose vehicle is exactly what the agency needs.
Aside from being 10 times safer than the shuttles during launch and re-entry (so NASA officials tell us) the MPCV is truly versatile. It will be capable of both deep space missions and, if necessary, routine trips to the International Space Station. It will be able to dock with other spacecraft and support spacewalks. With 316 cubic feet of habitable pressurized space, a very patient and non-claustrophobic crew could conceivably man the capsule for up to 21 days in space.
For NASA, the announcement is less about the technology and more about settling some points that have been more or less up in the air. Since President Obama eight-sixed Constellation last year in favor of longer term goals that put Americans on an asteroid by 2025 and on Mars by the 2030s, NASA has suffered somewhat from a lack of clearly defined goals. Now, with a heavy lift rocket in the works and a final decision on the next crew capsule, the agency can get back to what it was designed to do: making giant leaps for mankind.
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Orion Unveiled: Lockheed Shows Off First Crew Module, New Space Simulation Facility
Refresher: Orion was part of the $100 billion Constellation program axed by President Obama last year when he rearranged NASA’s priorities to focus on deep space missions (Constellation was designed to put mankind back on the moon). But the Orion crew capsule was salvaged from Constellation, originally to serve as an escape vehicle for the International Space Station.
But in the intervening months in which NASA hasn’t exactly been given a crystal clear set of goals, the space agency and Lockheed Martin have turned Orion into a sort of multi-purpose space capsule that can serve as an escape pod and ISS resupply shuttle, but also as a potential deep space explorer. That means asteroids or possibly Lagrange Points for starters, setting the stage for a future mission to Mars.
The massive 41,000-foot Space Operations Simulation Center will train astronauts on the spacecraft, which will also undergo rigorous testing there and at Lockheed’s other nearby facilities. The capsule unveiled Tuesday will likely never go all the way into orbital space, though some parts of it might, as many components are reusable even though the capsule itself is not. Rather, after extensive ground testing it could be launched on a suborbital test flight.
All that could transpire relatively soon. Orion’s first orbital flight is slated for 2013 (construction of that vehicle begins this year), and in terms of sophisticated space vehicles, two years isn’t a lot of time. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 calls for Orion to be ready for operational flight by 2016.
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NASA Budget Likely to Remain In Limbo Until After Election Day, Lawmakers Say
Congress has been debating the space agency’s future in fits and starts since the beginning of the year, when President Obama first proposed shifting its priorities. Lawmakers balked at his plans and offered their own budget suggestions, which have been bandied about through the summer. Still, competing House and Senate bills remain in play, and they’re in the next two weeks, when Congress goes on fall break to concentrate on the midterm elections.
There were some signs of hope today, however. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has been negotiating a new blueprint with Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., according to . If the two reach a compromise, the House could debate a NASA bill by next week, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Those in favor of NASA funding increases should hope they act quickly, because Republican leaders have said if they regain control of Congress, they’ll call for a spending freeze and a return to 2008 funding levels.
NASA has been in a state of limbo since February, when Obama proposed killing the Constellation program and relying on private firms to deliver astronauts and payloads to low-earth orbit. That plan is now dead, and the White House supports a Senate bill that includes a heavy-lift rocket as well as funding for the commercial space industry. The Senate already passed it, but it needs to be reconciled with a House bill.
Thursday afternoon, the House Science Committee moved closer to the Senate bill, adding that calls for building a heavy-lift rocket capable of launching an Orion-like crew capsule by 2016. But as Aviation Week reports, committee members are unsure whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bring the bill to the floor before the fall recess.
As it stands now, NASA has enough money to fly two more shuttle missions — Discovery in November and Endeavour in February, on the last mission to the International Space Station. The Senate bill and updated House bill include funding for one more launch sometime next June, but it’s not official yet. Beyond that, the agency’s future is in flux until Congress lays out a formal spending plan.
NASA brought Space Shuttle Discovery to the launch pad for the last time this week, preparing for its final launch in November. Maybe the second-to-last shuttle flight will remind Congress that after they wrap up this ugly election cycle, they still have some work to do.
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Samsung’s new Orion processor brings dual-core power to phones
Samsung already has a plenty powerful mobile CPU with its Hummingbird processor — the brains behind its — but today it has even bigger plans for next year: A low-powered dual-core processor, dubbed Orion, with powerful 3D and video capabilities.
The processor combines two ARM Cortex A9 cores running at 1 gigahertz to create a computing powerhouse. Samsung says it provides 5 times the 3D performance of the Hummingbird processor, enough power to record and decode 1080 high-definition video, as well as the ability to power three displays. A manufacturer could use the chip to create a device with two screens, and it would still have enough power left over to send video to a computer monitor or HDTV via its built-in HDMI connection.
Orion is built with Samsung’s 45-nanometer low-power processor technology, meaning that it won’t drain battery life even though it’s packing a healthy amount of horsepower.
Samsung isn’t the only mobile chip-maker with dual-core plans. Intel is looking to finally get a piece of the smartphone pie with , and Qualcomm is also .
The move towards dual-core processors will make mobile devices significantly more powerful than they can be if restricted to a single CPU core. The challenge for chip manufacturers will be balancing the more powerful hardware with battery life concerns.
Samsung says its Orion processor will be available to a few customers later this year, and it will started building the chips en masse in the first half of 2011.
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First Test of Orion Escape Vehicle Goes off ‘Like Clockwork’
"Wow, that went like clockwork from what I can see," said Jay Estes, NASA's deputy manager of the Orion project office. "That's an amazing test."
Dubbed Pad Abort-1, the mission performed a series of tasks during the short flight, including mid-air reorientation and firing of all of its three solid propellant rocket motors. The primary motor hurls the crew quickly away from the pad, an attitude control motor keeps it on the proper orientation, and a jettison motor divorces the crew module from the rest of the abort system so the parachutes can deploy. All systems, at least at first look, appear to be go.
The system is designed to initiate crew abort in a split second should the crew be in danger on the launch pad or during early stages of ascent. But NASA also thinks the data gathered from the Orion tests will inform the design of future manned spacecraft.
Space.com has a great video on this morning's launch and the nuts and bolts of the escape craft .
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