NASA Deep Space Exploration Systems Look Ahead to 2018

Engineers preparing NASA’s deep space exploration systems to support missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond are gearing up for a busy 2018. The agency aims to complete the manufacturing of all the major hardware by the end of the year for Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), which will pave the road for future missions with astronauts. Planes, trains, trucks and ships will move across America and over oceans to deliver hardware for assembly and testing of components for the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket while teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida prepare the Ground Systems infrastructure. Testing will take place from the high seas to the high skies and in between throughout the year and across the country, not only in support of EM-1, but also for all subsequent missions.

Orion

Early in the year, engineers at Kennedy will bolt Orion’s heat shield to the crew module. The heat shield will endure temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, half as hot as the surface of the Sun, when Orion returns from its missions near the Moon. Mating the heat shield is a crucial step before the service module arrives from Europe in the middle of the year. Once the powerhouse for the spacecraft arrives, technicians will outfit it for mating with the crew module and stack the elements together, joining propulsion lines, avionics and other connections. After the major elements are stacked together, technicians will verify that the integrated crew…

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