L-M Assumes Control Of KSC Assembly Facility

NASA's Orion spacecraft hasn't left the drawing board as yet... and already, the space agency has extended one of its missions. An agency official said Tuesday the new capsules will continue to fly to the International Space Station until 2020... four years longer than originally planned.

"The supposition previously had been that station flights (by Orion vehicles) would end in 2016," said Orion program manager Jeff Hanley. "That's not the guidance we're being given now."

Reuters reports NASA intended flights to the ISS past 2016 to be handled by commercial space vehicles, many of which are now under development themselves. The agency still hopes to stick to that plan... but NASA says it may still need as many as two Orion capsules to fly to the station every month.

"That may be crew rotations going to station, that could be servicing missions to the station with specialized crews to go up and do special work. We don't know. But we think it's a reasonable frequency of flying and production to base our budgets on at this point in the program," Hanley said.

In short, NASA wants to insure that flexibility -- both logistically, and financially -- now, instead of playing catch-up down the road. The extended mission timeframe would also mean some Orion missions to the ISS may overlap with NASA's first manned lunar mission, currently slated for 2020.

This week marked a milestone in Orion's development... as Wednesday, Orion contractor Lockheed Martin accepted responsibility for the Apollo-era Operations & Checkout (O&C) Building at Kennedy Space Center. Lockheed Martin will use the historic facility to build Orion, America's next-generation human spacecraft.

"This is another significant step forward for the Orion program as we take this massive, historic building that served our nation's space program so well during the Apollo years and completely modernize it for an entirely new generation of human space exploration vehicles," said Cleon Lacefield, Vice President and Orion Program Manager, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "This is an exciting day for the entire team and we look forward to getting the O&C ready to support NASA's Orion missions for decades to come."

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.lockheedmartin.com