CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- When NASA's Orion capsule lifts off on its first test flight here in early December, more than 4,000 Alabama aerospace workers will be watching closely. They know a lot is riding on a test that was always big and got even bigger when two commercial U.S. space companies suffered explosive flight failures this fall.
On the surface, the $370 million Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) seems simple enough. A Delta IV Heavy rocket built by United Launch Alliance in Decatur will boost an un-crewed Orion into space on Dec. 4.
Stuffed with sensors and cameras instead of astronauts, it will orbit the Earth twice reaching a height of 3,600 miles -- 15 times higher than the International Space Station -- before parachutes drop the capsule gently into the Pacific Ocean. It sounds like something America did routinely in the Apollo Program of 1960s.
But this will be the first flight of an NASA crew capsule beyond low-Earth orbit in decades and the first space test of key systems needed to carry astronauts to asteroids, the moon and Mars.
There are only two flight tests planned for Orion, and the next one -- called Exploration Mission-1 -- will circle the moon most likely in 2018. If something goes wrong in December, NASA will have to find money to fix it in a budget that is about as flat as a Walmart parking lot. NASA's Inspector General's Office talked about that in a report this month.
"The Orion program anticipates receiving a flat budget of $1 billion a year through 2021," the OIG report said. "Given this budget profile, NASA is using an incremental development approach under which it allocates funding to the most critical systems necessary to achieve the next development milestone, rather than developing multiple systems simultaneously as is common in major spacecraft programs."
Translation: A problem requiring changes in Orion would not only cost money to fix, it could delay everything that's already waiting now on the test flight.
"Obviously, it could depend on how big a change we're talking about," Orion program spokeswoman Brandi Dean said this month, "but I think that we're flying Exploration Flight Test-1 knowing that we could learn things that lead us to adjust the design of the systems for Exploration Mission-1. That's one of its purposes."
People will be watching, but how many?
Technicalities, schedules and budgets aside, most people will be watching to see if NASA can make a high-profile launch and test on the first try. Others will be watching to see just how much excitement the test generates.
"The mission will provide NASA managers and members of Congress with their best gauge yet of the public's willingness to support human spaceflight as a national priority for the 21st century," Ben Ianotta, editor of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' magazine "Aerospace America," wrote in an October editorial.
NASA understands the stakes. The flight has been called a "BF deal" by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and "the most important thing this agency will do this year" by a top NASA manager.
Bolden stressed the symbolism when he spoke to aerospace leaders in Huntsville in October. "It is the first time this nation has produced a vehicle intended to carry humans beyond Earth orbit, into deep space, in more than 40 years," he said. "More than 40 years! That's a B.F.D., OK?"
Testing important flight systems
Technically, the flight will test several important capsule systems: the launch abort system, the radiation shields protecting computers and other electronics, and the heat shield that will protect Orion on re-entry. None of those components was built in Alabama, but Alabama companies and workers have key roles in the test. They include:
- ULA, which employs about 900 people in Decatur, will provide the Delta IV Heavy booster that gets Orion off the launch pad. ULA's launch record is impressive for NASA space probes and military satellites, but Orion is a new level of attention for the company.
- NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which employees some 3,000 civil service and contractor employees, designed and built the adapter ring that joins the capsule to the rocket, which are two different diameters.
- Huntsville-area companies such as Arcata Associates Inc., InfoPro Corp., Teledyne Brown Engineering and General Products contributed more than 1,000 pieces of Orion flight and ground test hardware.
Standing behind those companies is the team at Marshall developing the Space Launch System booster rocket that will ultimately carry Orion and its crew to the moon and Mars. That team needs Orion to work to keep its booster's main reason for existing alive.