Orion

The first European-built service module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft is ready to be shipped from an Airbus factory in Bremen, Germany to the United States.

Florida invested $35,000,000 into an operations and checkout facility at Kennedy Space Center where Lockheed Martin is building NASA’s Orion multipurpose crew vehicle.

NASA plans to launch Exploration Mission-1 as an uncrewed Orion test flight on the first flight of SLS in 2020.

STPI estimated the Deep Space Transport development cost at $29,200,000,000 using the cost of developing Orion as a proxy and labeled that figure a very rough estimate.

NASA plans to allocate $651,000,000 of the additional 2020 funding to the Space Launch System and Orion to keep those programs on track.

NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin on 2019-09-23 for long-term production of the Orion spacecraft covering as many as 12 spacecraft to meet NASA’s anticipated needs into the 2030s.

NASA plans to purchase three additional Orion spacecraft for Artemis 6, Artemis 7, and Artemis 8 in 2022 for $1,900,000,000 under cost-plus contracts.

NASA planned one Orion launch per year after the Artemis 3 mission in 2024, covering mission needs well beyond 2030 if all contract options are exercised.

The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission was completing testing at NASA’s Plum Brook Station as of 2020-02-28.

NASA no longer expects astronauts on the Artemis 3 mission in 2024 to use the Gateway, and instead plans for the Orion spacecraft to dock directly with the lunar lander, most likely in near-rectilinear halo orbit.

NASA estimates spending an additional $12.8 billion on Orion through 2030, primarily on production of future spacecraft.

On 2020-12-17, NASA decided to use as is one of eight power and data units on the Orion spacecraft.

Under an Orion production and operations contract, NASA ordered three Orion spacecraft from Lockheed Martin for Artemis missions III through V and plans to order three additional Orion spacecraft for Artemis missions VI through VIII with options for up to 12 missions in total.

Under Lockheed Martin’s production contract with NASA, NASA has committed to order Orion vehicles for six missions with the potential to add another six through 2030.

Crews working since NASA’s 2022-07-20 target announcement completed repairs to the SLS and installed payloads inside the Orion capsule for Artemis 1.

In 2022 NASA ordered three additional Orion spacecraft for Artemis VI-VIII for $1,990,000,000.

Under OPOC, Lockheed Martin and NASA reduced Orion costs by 50% per vehicle for Artemis III through Artemis V compared to vehicles built during the design and development phase.

The NASA Authorization Act passed in 2022 directed NASA to create a Moon to Mars Program Office responsible for the Space Launch System, Orion, Exploration Ground Systems, lunar Gateway, Human Landing System, and spacesuits.

NASA cited three Orion issues, including heat shield char loss, as reasons for delaying the first crewed Orion mission Artemis 2 from late 2024 to no earlier than September 2025.