NASA Working Towards 2014 Test Flight

The pace of assembling the Orion spacecraft that will conduct an unmanned test flight in 2014 if all goes according to plan has stepped up at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, FL. Workers there are reportedly working on the hundreds of systems and key components that will be part of the spacecraft.

An enterprise report appearing in Universe Today indicates that technicians are already practicing stacking a mockup of the Launch Abort System (LAS) on top of the spacecraft inside the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on the Florida coast. Practicing with the high-fidelity analogs of the actual spacecraft components will help workers stay proficient with the process as they prepare for the launch next year, and future manned missions.

Part of the process involves taking the LAS from a horizontal to a vertical orientation for assembly on top of the Orion. Douglas Lenhardt, manager for the Orion mock-up and operations planning for the Ground Systems Development and Operations program, or GSDO, told Universe Today that is "not as easy as it sometimes seems," but that working with a physical model will be very beneficial when it comes time to stack the actual spacecraft.

The equipment being used is the same gear employed for the three decades of the shuttle program.

(Image provided by NASA)

FMI; www.nasa.gov/orion