Even though the Constellation Program was cancelled by President Obama last year, NASA Associate Administrator for Communications David Weaver stated in a press release, "President Obama and Congress have laid out an ambitious space exploration plan, and NASA is moving out quickly to implement it. This flight test will provide invaluable data to support the deep space exploration missions this nation is embarking upon."
The Orion multi-purpose crew spacecraft is a NASA developed vehicle designed to carry astronauts to the moon, asteroids, Mars and possibly beyond.
An unmanned test flight is planned for early 2014 by NASA, adding to the Lockheed Martin Space Systems', outside Denver, contract that covers the spacecraft's design, development, testing and evaluation.
The Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1) will involve two orbits and a high-energy re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. Landing will be in water and operations for recovery will be of the type planned for future manned missions.
NASA's Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier explained in a press release, "The entry part of the test will produce data needed to develop a spacecraft capable of surviving speeds greater than 20,000 mph and safely return astronauts from beyond Earth orbit. This test is very important to the detailed design process in terms of the data we expect to receive."
Cape Canaveral, Florida, will be the site for the test flight and the re-entry data will benefit Orion, NASA's new heavy launch vehicle called the Space Launch System (SLS) and the 21st Century Ground Systems programs.
Many future competitive solicitations to industry are also planned by NASA. Some examples for proposal solicitation include design, test and evaluations of advanced liquid or solid boosters for the SLS, and development of new spacecraft, payload adaptors and fairings for future crew and cargo missions.
The general benefit from space exploration is innovations in technology, health science and living efficiently on Earth. Specific goals of EFT-1 is to gather data needed for design decisions and developing new space systems development approaches that includes the reduction of cost and schedule risks of manned deep space explorations.
NASA's exploration programs can beseen at: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
Contract action synopsis is available at: http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/nais/index.cgi
attribution: NASA press release.
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