Technical issues with Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule to delay next Artemis mission
It appears that technical issues with Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule are one of the main reasons NASA has had to delay next Artemis mission, the first to put humans inside that capsule and then take them around the Moon.
In January 2024 it was reported that the mission would be delayed from a launch before the end of 2024 until 2025. We now know why:
NASA is working with Orion spacecraft prime contractor Lockheed Martin to resolve a handful of issues that came up late last year during ground testing, forcing the space agency to delay the launch readiness target date for its Artemis II circumlunar mission to September 2025. The Lockheed Martin assembly, test, and launch operations (ATLO) team at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is reinstalling some electronics and implementing workarounds for others affected by an electrical circuit flaw found in digital motor controllers on the spacecraft.
While a resolution to that issue appears to be getting closer, the Orion program and contractor teams are also working through the corrective actions process for a problem with how the Orion batteries handle the shock of an extreme abort case.
In other words, Lockheed Martin discovered these two electrical issues only last year, after spending almost two decades and more than $15 billion developing Orion.
As I predicted in January, “None of these dates will be met. I predict that further delays will be announced next year and the year after that, pushing all these missions back again, in small increments.” I also predicted that NASA will be lucky to land a human on the Moon by 2030, a mere fifteen years after its original target date of 2015, set by George Bush Jr. in 2004.
In the meantime, expect SpaceX’s Starship to begin regularly commercial and governmental flights to the Moon in the next five years. Long before SLS and Orion put humans on the Moon, Starship will be doing it privately for less cost.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It appears that technical issues with Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule are one of the main reasons NASA has had to delay next Artemis mission, the first to put humans inside that capsule and then take them around the Moon.
In January 2024 it was reported that the mission would be delayed from a launch before the end of 2024 until 2025. We now know why:
NASA is working with Orion spacecraft prime contractor Lockheed Martin to resolve a handful of issues that came up late last year during ground testing, forcing the space agency to delay the launch readiness target date for its Artemis II circumlunar mission to September 2025. The Lockheed Martin assembly, test, and launch operations (ATLO) team at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is reinstalling some electronics and implementing workarounds for others affected by an electrical circuit flaw found in digital motor controllers on the spacecraft.
While a resolution to that issue appears to be getting closer, the Orion program and contractor teams are also working through the corrective actions process for a problem with how the Orion batteries handle the shock of an extreme abort case.
In other words, Lockheed Martin discovered these two electrical issues only last year, after spending almost two decades and more than $15 billion developing Orion.
As I predicted in January, “None of these dates will be met. I predict that further delays will be announced next year and the year after that, pushing all these missions back again, in small increments.” I also predicted that NASA will be lucky to land a human on the Moon by 2030, a mere fifteen years after its original target date of 2015, set by George Bush Jr. in 2004.
In the meantime, expect SpaceX’s Starship to begin regularly commercial and governmental flights to the Moon in the next five years. Long before SLS and Orion put humans on the Moon, Starship will be doing it privately for less cost.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
If a picture was ever worth a thousand words…
https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/see-a-spacex-rocket-photobomb-the-moon-in-incredible-award-winning-shot
Emblematic of the new landscape of the Second Space Age, Mr. Fouquet’s photo sets the tone for humankind’s return to the moon and beyond. (Just wondering, but did something like this ever appear on the cover of Astounding / Analog, Galaxy, Fantastic Universe, or Fantasy & Science Fiction? This new photo has a very “familiar” look to it.)
At any rate, well done, Sir.
FTA – “”reinstalling some electronics and implementing workarounds””
Being old enough to have watched the first Mercury launches, aren’t “workarounds” supposed to be when a rocket / capsule is already out in space? In an age when SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are more reliable than some airlines, if something is still on the ground, why not get it right, as opposed to ‘working around’ something? Imagine being the first human guinea pigs to ride in this capsule. I don’t believe even Lloyd’s of London would insure their lives.
Perhaps they can consult with Boeing for some technical assistance.
“I don’t believe even Lloyd’s of London would insure their lives.”
Lloyd’s of London, like most insurance companies, will insure anything for a large enough premium. In this case “large enough” would probably be several hundred megabucks.
I’ve always said, by the time NASA lands a crew on Mars for the first time, Elon will be there to meet them with hot towels and a ride to a hotel.
I found this list interesting:
The list of astronauts who’ve walked on the moon during the Apollo era are:
Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11)
Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11)
Charles “Pete” Conrad (Apollo 12)
Alan Bean (Apollo 12)
Alan Shepard (Apollo 14)
Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14)
David Scott (Apollo 15)
James Irwin (Apollo 15)
John Young (Apollo 16)
Charles Duke (Apollo 16)
Eugene Cernan (Apollo 17)
Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17)
12 men have ever walked on the moon, and no Apollo 13.
There has got to be a story related to this factoid.
Cotour wrote, “12 men have ever walked on the moon, and no Apollo 13. There has got to be a story related to this factoid.”
Um, are you telling us that you have never heard of what happened on Apollo 13? Or are you being slightly sarcastic and I am not seeing it?
If you don’t know, you might read the book, Lost Moon, or even my own books Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Leaving Earth. Or you could watch the movie Apollo 13. You might learn something.
Cotour!
What, exactly, is the point of your comment?
No, I assumed they passed over the number 13 like builders pass over the 13 as a floor number. No sarcasm at all.
Ah, I see, that is the mission that had a malfunction and had to return without getting to the moon.
(I am only half a space nerd, didn’t see the movie)
I happened to be listening to a radio show this morning and the question was asked and the answer came back that 4 men walked on the moon.
I thought, that cannot be correct, and I looked it up and saw the missing Apollo 13 and assumed that it was missing because of superstition. Where else would one find the real answer to that question?
I should have looked further.
You could have asked all us old guys who were teenagers during Apollo 13.
Ronaldus Magnus asked: “‘reinstalling some electronics and implementing workarounds’ Being old enough to have watched the first Mercury launches, aren’t ‘workarounds’ supposed to be when a rocket / capsule is already out in space? In an age when SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are more reliable than some airlines, if something is still on the ground, why not get it right, as opposed to ‘working around’ something?”
I’ve been in several meetings where we discussed solutions to similar problems. There are definitely deadlines to meet, and a customer wants his spacecraft launched closer to on time than sometime in the far distant future. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time before launch to do it “right,” so good enough is good enough. What you don’t want is for there to be too many of these kinds of problems.
For Artemis, the design was for something used only once, so there was little or no consideration put into the design for repair or replacement. Unfortunately, the darnedest things go wrong with spacecraft, and repair or replacement becomes necessary, or maybe some form of workaround can be done.
Robert wrote: “In other words, Lockheed Martin discovered these two electrical issues only last year, after spending almost two decades and more than $15 billion developing Orion.”
This is one of the problems with slowing down a project. The final testing has to happen close to launch in order to catch whatever problems may have developed while the delayed project was “sitting on the shelf.” Most of the time, as in the case of Orion, the whole project was slowed and annual budget reduced (overall budget increased), so the hardware was not ready well in advance for extensive testing. The same problems manifest themselves late in the schedule, whether the schedule is short or long, and the delays give everyone time to imagine more scenarios that were not accounted for during the requirements and specification stage of the development.
It is probably good to have the imaginative scenarios, but it could be too late to really cover them with the current hardware. This may have happened with Orion. In one case, the scenario was tested at the unit level and passed but the top assembly, at the integration level, failed.
These are some of the difficulties in working in space.
When I first got into the business, my mentor kept reminding me to design for assembly, but after my first design was first assembled, I quickly learned that I also had to design for disassembly so that inspections, repairs, or modifications could be performed — despite my projects being one-off (one or two, but I once built 36 filters of the same design, still considered one-off). Orion clearly was not designed for such post-assembly activities.