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Subscribe to RSSThis animation shows NASA's Orion spacecraft as it will appear on its Exploration Mission-1 in 2017, complete with a service module to be provided by the European Space Agency.
NASA and the European Space Agency have signed an agreement calling for the Europeans to provide the service module for the Orion space capsule, the U.S. space agency's crew vehicle for exploration beyond Earth orbit.
The hardware would provide the Orion with propulsion, power, thermal control and basic supplies such as water and breathable air. ESA said the design will be based on that of the ATV supply ships that are currently being sent to the International Space Station.
"ATV has proven itself on three flawless missions to the space station, and this agreement is further confirmation that Europe is building advanced, dependable spacecraft," Nico Dettmann, head of the ATV's production program, said in an ESA statement.
The Orion's first test flight is scheduled for 2014, using a test service module built by Lockheed Martin. That unmanned launch would send the Orion to an altitude of 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers). The European-built service module would get its first in-space tryout along with the Orion capsule and heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket in 2017, during an unmanned test flight that would go around the moon and back.
"This is not a simple system," Orion program manager Mark Geyer said in a NASA statement. "ESA's contribution is going to be critical to the success of Orion's 2017 mission."
The first flight with astronauts aboard would follow a round-the-moon route in 2021, and ESA will provide components for that flight as well.
NASA's current exploration plan calls for the Orion-SLS system to send humans to a near-Earth asteroid in the mid-2020s, and to Mars and its moons in the 2030s. Meanwhile, the task of sending cargo and crew to the International Space Station would be left to commercial spaceship providers.
When the Orion-SLS program was unveiled in 2011, the development cost was estimated at $18 billion through 2017, and roughly that much more for the 2017-2022 time frame.
Under the NASA-ESA agreement, which was signed in December and announced on Wednesday, ESA will provide the design and the hardware for the Orion service module as part of its contribution to the International Space Station project. The BBC reported that without such a contribution, ESA would owe NASA $600 million for the 2017-2020 period.
"Space has long been a frontier for international cooperation as we explore," Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration system development, said in the space agency's statement. "This latest chapter builds on NASA's excellent relationship with ESA as a partner in the International Space Station, and helps us move forward in our plans to send humans farther into space than we've ever been before."
Even though ESA will provide the service module, its propulsion system will make use of engines left over from NASA's space shuttle program.
Bill Gerstenmaier, director of spaceflight operations at NASA Headquarters, said the European contribution would help keep the Orion project on track for the 2017 and 2021 flights. "We shouldn't try to go look at what ESA's contributing and then try to subtract that out of our budget," he told reporters. "We're actually getting a better, more robust design by cooperating together."
He acknowledged that the agreement put the Europeans in the "critical path" for future U.S. space exploration.
"I'm a realist, and I know that this won't be easy," he said. "It's not 100 percent comfortable — but I'm never 100 percent comfortable."
More about Orion:
- Europeans decide to boost NASA's Orion
- Orion project on schedule for 2014 test flight
- The moon looms again as future destination
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Yes, the Demoncrats and their friends who attacked Mitt so fiercely re exporting jobs, have actually been the worst offenders in the private sector (like Apple). Now, our own government under this administration, is sending jobs to Europe. GREAT!
Mitt loves to creates jobs overseas... In fact he is responsible for quite a few banking sector jobs in tax havens around the world.
Dammit, now you have me going off on political BS.
...These European jobs already exist. They currently build the ATV.
Hey, mob, you conveniently forget about all the Dem/leftists who run big businesses and send jobs overseas. When you run a business and your competitor sends his factory to China and produces a flat screen TV that he can sell for 50% less than you do, then you send your factory there too. It's called competition.
Re ATV they already build, so what? Why not build ours here and create at least those jobs here?
Leftist moron.
Anthony. So you want to take an exisisting product with an exisisting labor force and, for political reasons, ingnore that asset, and instead try to create a new design from scratch and produce it here in the United States? Even if said product ALREADY Exists?
1. That would have a HUGE increase to the budget needed! Your talking the funding would need to be at least tripled! I thought you didn't want government "waste?" That you wanted your tax dollars spent as effieciently as possible? The efficient way to achieve this objective would be to use the existing manufacturing infrastructure.
2. Wait, I thought that the government didn't create jobs? That the private sector does and that government funding of a social good was "crony capitalism" like Solyndra? So if we through BILLIONS of dollars at a company that failed to produce and went under, would that be okay becuase it was spent in the US or would it be someone wasting money by giving out a government contractor not based on cost or benefit?
I am not going to say this applies to every conservative or Republican just you.....
.....Right-wing Hypocrite!
Hey, Anthony, you don't know me, so don't bother calling me names.
Furthermore, this is not about creating jobs here. I am all for creating jobs in the USA. I advocate it constantly. But this article and the subject matter of which it speaks is not, at all, about creating jobs. The Europeans are going to build a service module for the Orion spacecraft. It comes at very little, if any, cost to the American tax payer.
I'll put it another way.. Pretend that you want some coffee. You have your mug, that you handmade yourself, and now you want to fill it with some good coffee. You actually could grow your own coffee beans but FOR THIS PARTICULAR cup of coffee you talk to your neighbor who will give you a weeks worth of coffee to pay you back for letting him borrow your snow shovel. So you agree and accept your neighbors coffee.
Where is the harm in that. He had the coffee. He owed you something. And you had a need he could fulfill.
I will tell you this Anthony, I am actually more right wing than perhaps my comments would lead you to believe. And if you are republican, or if you are in favor of any amount of fiscal solvency then you would do well to support this kind of plan.
mob
Your well thought out reply may be wasted on Anthony.
Mr. Mutt, Mr. mob is just as confused as you and Vance. You guys know nothing about business or management. Granted their product exists, who says it is better than what ours would have been? If Ford builds a certain model, does that mean Chevy or Toyota should not compete in building a comparable one? Or at least, we should buy the design and build it HERE! Boeing sells 787s to Japanese airlines but they REQUIRE that at least some parts be built in Japan. These are taxpayer dollars and they should be supporting US jobs.
Anthony, again, you are making assumptions about that which you have no clue. You don't know me, and you don't know what I do or do not know.
Lets dissect your argument (comment #27.6).
Our what? Are you under the impression that the Europeans are building the only service module that will work with Orion??? It says clearly within the body of the article that Lockheed Martin is responsible for the test item that will accompany the 2014 test flight of Orion. So, as it happens, Americans are actually building a service module that will work with Orion... Who'd'a'thunkit right? I know, it's weird.
If Ford owes you a car, or something of equal value, do you buy the design of the Ford and build Chevy's or Toyotas and forgo the valuable asset that is owed to you???
Now, the article is fairly clear on this point. These are not American tax dollars. Not entirely. The United States tax payer is invested in the International Space Station. Through contracts, ESA owes NASA and the USA roughly 600 million dollars for the period between 2017 and 2020. So, shifting the contract around they have offered to build us a service module. I don't know how to make that point any clearer. We are building our own service modules (at least test articles that could conceivably be produced for actual missions) AND in lieu of payment on previous agreements NASA is accepting a service module based on a reputable and proven design (the ATV).
And yet your argument is to buy their design and build it here. They already owe us something. So, why would we buy something? What's worth more to you? Having yet another design of a service module that we already know how to build? or getting a return on money the United States taxpayer has ALREADY invested!?
And while we're at it let me just go even further to say that in this global economy we can not and should not be so self-serving to think that no one else should build anything like a space craft. There are space industries developing in many countries and it is in our best interests to nurture all of them (all of those with peaceful goals, that is). American jobs are and should be a priority in America. But we should also foster support of our allies abroad. That is all.
Anthony- Actually I do know buisness, and SPECIFICALLY manufacturing, dealing with government contracts. The contract would not be approved without a extensive quality review, including performance issues. And your analogy is interesting for Ford versus Chevy or Toyota, as those are private sector competeting against each other for money. NASA is not in a competeting area, but is rather the end customer on the line. Its more along the line of a city police department needing police cruisers and a perfectly acceptable one made three towns over, but instead paying the start up cost for Ford to open a plant in their home town to get their cruisers.
Besides, Europe would not sell the design to be built here. They would contract the design, essentially "leasing" the design to America, so they would still profit off of it.
That's the way the auto industry works, too, Anthony. Toyota builds cars in America. America builds cars in Japan and Europe.
It's a world economy. What happens in one country effects the whole world. Just look at the world-wide recession. Building in Europe will help the U.S.
NASA should change its name to NADA !
You do realize NASA is an acronym, as its letters stand for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. And while your change would work, as the necessary letters are there, the sum of NASA's accomplishments, whether you choose to believe them or not, indicates they have produced a lot more than "zero". Even if it is all faked, as you theorize, that means the US government (thus including NASA) would have fooled billions of people for 43 years and counting. That would be quite an accomplishment in the annuls of lying. And it makes selling the Brooklyn Bridge or Eiffel Tower seem like stealing candy from a baby.
But if you want to disparage NASA, may I suggest changing the pronunciation to "Nay-Say", as Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites does.
Do people really believe that these idiots ever went to the moon or yet sent a rover to Mars ! People sure are gullible !
Yes, they certainly are.
They'll believe just about any conspiracy theory as long as it caters to their paranoia.
Mebbe they did, or mebbe they didn't.. one thing's for sure - Bigfoot will never tell
Do people still believe that America never went to the moon and just forged all that footage and materials in regards to the rover? People sure are lazy. Twenty minutes of Internet searching would flood even the most desperate conspiracy theorist with proof.
My typical response to all that nonsense: Russia. Especially in the Cold War days. (Too young to know them? Learn some history.) Every reason for them to blow open a hoax if they believed there was one.
But not so much as a hint from the former Soviets that they thought so.
Am I to believe that conspiracy theorists learned something that all the resources of the KGB could not?
What's that you say? The Soviets were in on it too? (Really. Some have claimed that.)
So, am I to believe instead that they agreed to a hoax that made them appear the losers? A real hoax would have been; "Okay, we'll pretend to land on the Moon a few times, you pretend to land on the Moon a few times, then we'll both call it quits."
But Russia has yet to send a human anywhere beyond LEO. (though in a slightly different Universe, they could have sent a man around the Moon in late 1968, possibly as little as two weeks before Apollo 8. Once it was clear that they couldn't make a Proton and manned circumlinar Zond safe enough in time to do even that much, they chose to pretend to never have been in a 'race' at all. As they say; "If at first you don't succeed...destroy all evidence that you tried." If there was any hoax, that was it. Denial of any interest in going to the Moon [as they continued to sweep up the debris from four N-1 heavy lift launcher attempts], which may people in and out of the US were willing to believe. And they do admit it now, but who listens now?)
And now some people can't even accept that machines (and MSL was hardly the first one) have made it to Mars. What's the problem? Too much RADIATION (yes, usually expressed by CTs in all caps) for them, too? Is the rest of the world (including those parts of it who would love to discredit the US today, if they could) again too stupid to figure out that which only you can?
We couldn't hide the Glomar Explorer project for very long, but you consider the government competent enough to hide projects a thousand times larger, for decades longer? Show me one. just one person of the thousands of engineers and technicians involved who has stepped up and said; 'Yes it was a fake, and this was my part in it.'
One.
Do you even believe the Sun will rise tomorrow...?
Johny,
I know someone who absolutely knows the truth behind the Apollo Moon landings. His name is Edwin Aldrin, Jr. Find him and ask him, face to face, about the conspiracy. He will give you an earful of stories, and probably turn your eye onto the truth. Just make sure you record this prestigious, and potentially jaw-dropping, event for the world to share.
And make sure you know how to deal with nosebleeds...
Why are we wasting money on this? Feed the poor!
Don't worry the money is printed from thin air, the latest in NASA technology>= )
We are feeding the poor. This provides jobs so that people can put food on the table.
What have the poor ever done for us?
Moar space crafts, plz.
Ralph, social programs are vastly larger than the NASA budget.
If that isn't working, don't pretend that NASA's additional sliver will turn it around, ask why it's not working.
(Of course, NASA doesn't get the bang for the buck that it could either, but that's another story...)
Give a man a fish, he eats one meal. Teach a man to fish, he can feed the whole village then trade some to the next for other supplies. My version of the saying, and it applies herein.
I always liked, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day."
This sounds like Apollo 13 written all over it....Square Peg, Round Hole!
Several nations have produced modules and/or ships for ISS, including the US, Russia, Japan and the ESA.
Love the Europeans and their space program is quite good but we need to develop a wholly American capability!
Why should we?
I don't understand this defensive, desperately protectionist feeling around space technology. Space science and exploration is too important to be subjected to short-sighted nationalism.
You've not heard of Commercial Crew, have you...?
You're kidding me! Space X already has the Dragon module ready to go (barring all the freaking NASA approvals that the ESA module doesn't have to dance through!). We seriously need a new administration.
You understand that thier is a higher level of complexity from putting an object into low earth orbit and sending one, MANNED, to the moon? You want a better NASA? Ask for more funding. Considering what we are getting with the price tag of this mission, I say its pretty darn impressive.
No Wash, he clearly does not understand. Break it down for us, bro.
Preferably with flowcharts. I like me some flowcharts.
Actually, SpaceX might not be as far as it is without the current administration.
The conservative side would've been happy to raid Commercial Crew's funding to still get a long, drawn-out Orion/SLS program, and still send money to Russia for ISS access.
(And God forbid that that single-source access provider should have either political issues with the US with that as a leverage point...or honest, serious technical problems [and there have been a few] that could force a long delay in Soyuz/Progress flights.)
"You understand that thier is a higher level of complexity from putting an object into low earth orbit and sending one, MANNED, to the moon?"
It's not as if we have no clue as to how it's done...
And deep space is the ultimate plan for the Dragon. It already has a heat shield designed for high-speed re-entry from the Moon and beyond. You don't do that, unless you expect to eventually use that capability.
@Brandon The project's technical complexity is NOT the reason that it is taking so long. Back in the 1960s the U.S. landed crews on the moon in less than 10 years. NASA was able to do that because the U.S. government committed funding at a level that we are unlikely ever to see again. The SLS will get built -- and missions will begin to the moon and to mars -- precisely as quickly as NASA's relatively scant funding will allow.
The 2009 report of the Review of United States Human Space Flight, headed by Norm Augustine, stated that a $3 billion per year increase in NASA's budget would be enough to enable manned landings on the moon to happen in a timely way. Of course, that funding didn't materialize -- and is unlikely to materialize.
Want to see it all happen more quickly? Contact your local congresscritter and tell him/her to fund NASA at the level that it oughtta be funded.
It's sad and somewhat disturbing to see so many people reading an article about international cooperation on space technology and then rushing to the comments to complain about outsourcing and defending "American jobs".
Putting aside their weak understanding of macroeconomics, the world DOES have concerns outside of creating jobs in the United States. Shocking, I know! But that is not the first priority of everyone on the planet, or even the first priority of everyone in America.
International cooperation on space exploration and science will provide a much-needed boost to a sector of technology that has some EXTREMELY difficult obstacles to overcome and already suffers too much dysfunction on account of technology hoarding and political interference. We need to prevent this kind of empty nationalism from hindering the advancement of science, rather than calling for MORE political intervention in the hopes that it will knock down the unemployment figures by another 0.001 percent. Not that it will (engineers and scientists are not having a terrible time finding jobs nowadays).
Keep the deals coming! Build more rockets, share more tech. The more metal and flesh we can get off this rock, the better.
Agreed, but unfortunately a lot of US citizens are unwilling to try and understand the global economy as they are only interested in helping themselves.
"Advanced, dependable craft"?!? What, you mean this 1960's Technology 'Donkey-grade' Tech?
We should be going to the Moon in 'Cadillac-grade tech', by now.....and, IF America hadn't "lost it", at some mysterious point in time during the last 40 or so years, then we WOULD BE!
Why, at least SpaceX built, tested, proved, and then offered to NASA his 'Still a Big Mule-grade, but yet still much better than Donkey-grade tech' Dragon Capsule....fulfilling the "original mission" of NASA, to "seed" these new technologies; NOT GET INTO, AND THEN TRY TO DOMINATE, THE SPACE LAUNCH BUSINESS; all without anyone seeming to NOTICE, except Elon Musk, et al, and ME......though we could be using Magneto-Plasma-Dynamic Boosted Ion/Plasma-Engines, to propel a Low Earth Orbit to Lunar Surface Shuttlecraft by now; as Frank Chang Diaz and Ad Astras VASIMIR Engine (a Superconducting MPD Boosted Ion Drive), which is being tested on the ISS RIGHT NOW, clearly demonstrates!!!
It's - STILL - All about which Congresspersons Constituent Campaign Contributors Industrial Concern can "milk the most from the LUCRATIVE GOVERNMENT CONTRACT" - rather than Saving The Planet, by Saving US from drowning in our OWN CRAP!
But then, because of our ABOMINABLE Science Education System, to most people all this stuff is just "neat" - isn't it?
It doesn't, in their minds, look to them like a New Way - in a New Place - to get the resources that we need to continue to conduct our industrial enterprises 'as we know them'; to them, it's not a "way around" all of the Environmental Issues, or the Dwindling Resource Issues - or, even. if we built some really HUGE Tunnel Boring Machines to drill really HUGE Tunnels beneath the Lunar Surface, and then filled them with GROW LIGHTS AND FOOD CROPS! - a way to FEED 10,000,000,000 People without killing off the oceans with Phosphate Runoff!!!
Say....If we did that, and Yellowstone blew.....Well, No More Prob, there, either - eh?