Orion Space Capsule
It will carry the crew to space provide emergency abort capability sustain the crew and provide a safe return to earth.
Orion space capsule. Missions to explore asteroids and. Orion officially orion multi purpose crew vehicle or orion mpcv is a class of partially reusable space capsules to be used in nasa s human spaceflight programs. Orion space capsule in orbit nasa the rocket will launch astronauts into space on nasa s orion multi purpose crew vehicle and serve as the go to booster for u s.
The spacecraft consists of a crew module cm manufactured by lockheed martin and the european service module esm manufactured by airbus defence and space. Lockheed martin is the prime contractor building orion. Orion s first flight test exploration flight test 1 eft 1 launched on dec.
Vice president mike pence announced. Orion is nasa s new exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations in deep space including an asteroid and mars. No other spacecraft in development has the technology needed for the extremes of deep space such as life support navigation communications radiation shielding and the world s largest heat shield that will protect astronauts and help return them safely home.
Aerospace company lockheed martin has finished building the orion capsule that will fly on the uncrewed artemis 1 test mission around the moon next summer u s.