Orion EFT-1 Propulsion Test Results

Abstract

The Orion program, originally known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) project, was awarded to Lockheed Martin in September 2006 for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) and production phases. The 2011 President’s Budget Request, released in February 2010, called for the cancellation of the Constellation Program, including Orion, however, Orion was ultimately reformed as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) program and, although the fundamental design requirements of the vehicle have remained stable since the reformulation, the vehicle’s mission has significantly changed from ISS crew servicing to focusing primarily on beyond earth orbit (BEO) exploration. Since the reestablishment of Orion as the BEO MPCV the design requirements have stabilized and the program has been focusing more on test and evaluation. Following the reformulation of Orion MPCV in 2011, Lockheed Martin’s contract was modified to focus on an efficient flight test strategy starting with a very important risk reduction flight called Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) to validate the subsystems on Orion required for a high speed re-entry similar to a BEO return. This mission will be followed by an uncrewed Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) in 2018, an Ascent Abort test (AA-2) in 2019, and then a crewed Exploration Mission 2 (EM-2) in 2021. The EFT-1 mission was launched and successfully completed on December 5 th 2014. This paper will present a general overview of the Orion propulsion system and provide a more detailed report on the test results of the propulsion system flown on the EFT-1 mission. The purpose of the paper is to inform the aerospace community of the progress the Orion Program is making and in particular the status of the in-space propulsion system and its performance on the successful EFT-1 mission. The technical foundation for the topics to be discussed include a summary overview of the Orion deep space mission requirements and the baseline design concept. A status of ground testing and preliminary EFT-1 results will be summarized and include key figures, tables, and references as appropriate.