No description available.
Launch Date
3/31/1976
Launch Site
53-y Nauchno-Issledovatelskiy Ispitatelniy Poligon,
, SU
Launch Vehicle
Soyuz 11A511M (R-7 Family)
NASA’s mitigation strategy for the Orion heat shield anomaly is to avoid the conditions believed to cause the anomaly rather than implement an immediate full redesign.
The attitude control motor and the abort motor are designed to pull Orion and its crew away from the rocket in the event of an emergency during launch or ascent.
The Near Space Network will provide communications and navigation services while Orion is in low Earth orbit and during early parts of the translunar trajectory using a global collection of ground stations and relay satellites.
The NASA and Department of Defense recovery teams will begin heading to the Orion splashdown site in the days after launch.
When Orion’s orientation was altered during an engine burn on Artemis I, measured radiation exposure levels dropped nearly in half.
Orion on Artemis II will carry more radiation sensors than were carried on Artemis I.
The MER team will analyze Orion technical data during the Artemis II mission to assist flight control with optimizations and anomalies.
Lockheed Martin recorded a $255 million increase in commercial civil space program sales in 2025, primarily for the Orion program.
A crawler-transporter carried a mobile launch platform with the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft named Integrity to Launch Complex 39B on January 17.
Orion carries star-tracking systems that image stars and use the Moon’s position and shadow by date to determine spacecraft position and velocity.
GMV personnel will serve as part of Orion’s ground control team to provide real-time mission support.
SKY Perfect JSAT will use three 13.5-meter antenna facilities to receive radio signals from Orion, measure frequency transitions (Doppler shifts) with high precision, and provide the acquired tracking data to NASA to support mission safety.
SKY Perfect JSAT’s ground station will perform signal measurements in Earth orbit and cislunar space from February through April 2026 after the Orion launch.
The European Space Agency supplied the European Service Module (ESM) for NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
The European Service Module will provide water, air, electricity, and thermal control to Orion crew during the mission.
The SLS and Orion stack rolled nearly seven kilometers to Launch Pad 39B on a crawler-transporter during the Jan. 17, 2026 rollout.
NASA’s SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft rolled to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for the Artemis II Moon mission.
The architectural roots of Artemis draw heavily from the cancelled Constellation program, specifically the Orion crew capsule and the Space Launch System (SLS).
The Orion mission obtained additional Deep Space Network time by negotiating with other missions using the DSN to shorten the 2022-12-03 outage.
Airbus Defence and Space is contracted to build six service modules for the Orion capsule, designated ESM-1 through ESM-6.