NASA completed construction of the first Orion reusable spacecraft module

Today, NASA announced the availability of the first module of the reusable Orion spacecraft. This ship will be used to deliver cargo and astronauts to the asteroid redirected to the lunar orbit, and then to Mars. Orion will be transported by a heavy booster Delta IV Heavy. It should be noted that the first launch of a new launch vehicle with the new module will take place as early as December of this year. NASA plans to send Orion to a height of about 6,000 kilometers above the surface of the planet, or higher.

Orion itself must replace the "Shuttles", as well as ensure the possibility of delivering cargo and people to distant targets, including Mars . The new spacecraft will also be used for the flight to the ISS, in order to deliver the astronauts aboard the space station.
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As for the parameters of the ship, they are quite impressive. Wikipedia tells us that “the diameter of the Orion ship is 5.3 meters (16.5 feet), the weight of the ship is about 25 tons. The internal volume of the Orion will be 2.5 times larger than the internal volume of the Apollo. The volume of the cabin of the Orion (MPCV) is about 9 m³. And this is not the total volume of the hermetic design, namely, the space free from equipment, computers, chairs and other “stuffing”.

Experts gave Orion a conical shape, since it is the safest and most reliable form of the ship when it returns to Earth, with a planned speed of up to 32 thousand kilometers per hour. The surface of the ship at the same time should heat up to 2.2 thousand degrees Celsius.



Test flight - the third test of the new ship. The first test was conducted in February, then the experts checked the operation of the systems, the second - last month , tested the interaction of the ship’s systems with water, as well as the operability of the installed equipment.

By 2018, NASA is planning to test and launch a new launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), with Orion.

It is worth noting that the NASA agency acts as a customer for the construction of Orion, the project is implemented by the contractor, by Lockheed Martin.