Baseline Established After Completion Of Systems Requirement
Review
After having one of its (now former) astronauts charged with
assault... a hailstorm that damaged and delayed the shuttle
Atlantis... and a funding shortage that will keep its next
generation spacecraft on the ground until 2015, NASA could use some
good news right now. Well, it's not a miracle donation of $545
million in cash... but NASA does have some reason to celebrate,
courtesy of its upcoming Orion crew exploration vehicle.
NASA announced this week the agency has established a
requirements baseline for the Orion crew exploration vehicle,
bringing America's next human spacecraft a step closer to
construction. The Orion Project completed its system requirements
review in cooperation with its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin,
on March 1.
The space agency tells ANN the review marked the first major
milestone in the Orion engineering process and provided the
foundation for design, development, construction and safe operation
of the spacecraft that will carry explorers to Earth orbit, to the
moon, and eventually to Mars. The detailed requirements established
in this review will serve as the basis for ongoing design analysis
work and systems testing.
"This is a significant step in the development of a space
transportation system that will expand our horizons to include
other worlds," said Skip Hatfield, Orion Project manager at NASA's
Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The Orion review followed an overall review of requirements for
the Constellation Program that was completed in November. Similar
reviews are planned later this spring for ground and mission
operations systems that will support Constellation launch systems
and space flight operations ground infrastructure.
"We have now completed program-wide launch vehicle and human
spacecraft system requirements reviews," said Constellation Program
Manager Jeff Hanley. "These are important pieces of a management
and engineering puzzle that will allow us to accomplish the goal of
putting humans back on the moon."
The Orion requirements data set was reviewed by agency and
contractor scientists and engineers from across the country. More
than 1,700 topics covering all aspects of vehicle performance,
design and qualification were discussed during the course of the
formal review.
Once all project-level reviews are complete, the Constellation
Program will hold another full review to update baseline
requirements. A lunar architecture systems review of equipment
associated with surface exploration and science activities on the
moon is expected in the spring of 2009.