Kennedy Space Center welcomes European 'powerhouse' for Orion deep space capsule

In two years or so, an engine will fire to propel NASA’s Orion capsule around the moon, farther out from Earth than any spacecraft designed to carry astronauts.

At Kennedy Space Center on Friday, in the high bay where Apollo capsules were prepared for launch, NASA and European officials celebrated the arrival of the “powerhouse” that will drive humanity’s next ride into deep space.

Orion’s European Service Module arrived from Germany on Nov. 6, a milestone achieved seven years after NASA partnered with the European Space Agency to provide the critical power and propulsion system.

“We will not go back to the moon, we will go forward to the moon,” said Jan Wörner, ESA's director general, during a ceremony in KSC’s Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building. “We will go in a totally different way to the moon, not in competitive manner but in a very cooperative manner.”

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Wrapped in a blue-tinted protective coating, the 30,000-pound module — still above the flight weight it must eventually reach — on Friday was suspended in a stand beneath an adapter that will connect to a crew module for the Exploration Mission-1 test flight.

NASA is targeting late 2020 for that mission’s blastoff, without a crew, from KSC’s pad 39B atop the space agency’s first Space Launch System rocket. Orion will fly 40,000 miles beyond the moon.

A crew of up to four astronauts could follow on Exploration Mission-2 in 2022 or 2023, after upgrades to the Orion including the addition of life support systems.

The service module's 20,000 parts include an engine — formerly used to maneuver space shuttles in orbit — and four solar array wings for electrical power. It will provide water, oxygen and air conditioning for crews.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Bill Hill, NASA’s associate administrator for Exploration Systems at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “This positions us to be much closer to launch.”

The Orion program dates to 2006, when NASA chose Lockheed Martin as its prime contractor. After the Obama administration canceled NASA’s Constellation return-to-the-moon program, the service module project was offered to Europe — putting the continent in the "critical path" of an American spaceship’s development for the first time.

NASA expects to spend $11.3 billion to produce a crew-ready Orion by April 2023. That total does not include Europe’s cost to provide the service module, which was not confirmed Friday.

Officials on Friday touted the benefits of cooperation in deep space exploration, building upon the legacy of the International Space Station, whose first module launched 20 years ago next Tuesday.

“We feel very optimistic also for the future, that we can deliver together something that each of us could not do, or would not do, alone,” said Wörner. “I think our Pale Blue Dot, as it’s called, deserves this type of cooperation beyond national borders.”

The European Space Agency and its prime contractor, Airbus Defense and Space, said the overcame “enormous” challenges working across the Atlantic Ocean to develop the halves of Orion that must fit together and work seamlessly in space. And they acknowledged that the service module remains a work in progress.

One of the bigger challenges: committing to a weight loss program.

“We have been on a diet for about seven years,” joked Phillippe Deloo, ESA’s European Service Module program manager. “We had to take some shortcuts because of the schedule, but we have plans for the future modules to be compliant.”

In the coming months, the first European Service Module will undergo a battery of tests before being joined with the Crew Module assembled at KSC by Lockheed Martin, a milestone tentatively planned next May.

The Orion will be shipped to Ohio for tests in the world’s largest thermal vacuum chamber, and eventually be turned over to KSC teams that will place it atop the first Space Launch System rocket.

“So get ready, it’s coming, it’s coming really quick,” said Mark Kirasich, NASA’s Orion program manager. “The next stop after that, by the way, is the moon.”

Contact Dean at 321-917-4534 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FlameTrench.

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