Read more: "Humans head for moon's orbit ? and beyond"
An uncrewed NASA spacecraft will fly to the moon in 2017 and a crewed mission will go into lunar orbit in 2019, according to NASA's new partner in human space flight, the European Space Agency (ESA).
ESA announced on 21 November that it is developing a service module for NASA's Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, which is designed for deep space missions. ESA will base the service module on its Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), a drone that carries supplies to the International Space Station.
The new service module will be a stumpy, cylindrical unit that will sit behind Orion's pointy crew capsule. Its job is to provide the fuel, breathable air, solar electricity and the manoeuvring systems Orion will need for an extended space flight.
"Orion's first mission in 2017 will be an unmanned moon flyby mission. The second crewed mission, yet to be confirmed by NASA, will go into lunar orbit," says Nico Dettman, head of the ATV programme at ESA's research centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Both missions will test Orion's ability to escape Earth's orbit, position itself near the moon and head home on a safe trajectory for re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, adds Dettman.
Recycle and reuse
European industry sees ESA's involvement in NASA's human space programme as a major boost. "This is the first time NASA has asked a non-US country to develop a critical technology for a manned space flight program," says Matthias Spude of EADS Astrium, the firm that builds the ATV in Bremen, Germany. Until now, ESA's crewed space flight contribution was limited to the Columbus lab on the space station.
NASA and a contractor, Lockheed Martin, had started development of an Orion service module, but that programme was halted when it became apparent that ESA's highly reliable ATV technology could be repurposed for the job, says Dettman.
ESA says it is already working with Lockheed and NASA, and a major design review is slated for July 2013. There are lots of changes to work out before then, says Dettman. "For instance, the service module will not carry cargo like ATV, nor will it have its automated docking intelligence that will be in the Orion capsule," he says.
As part of the partnership, the new service module will replace the ATV's four main engines with a single 27-kilonewton engine originally designed for manoeuvring NASA's retired space shuttle. Such component reuse is a big aim for NASA, not least because tax dollars were spent on development. The module will keep the ATV's clutch of 24 vectoring thrusters, which have allowed the unpiloted craft to achieve reliable, fine-grained control during docking with the space station.
'Orion will lift off on the Space Launch System, a rocket now in development at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, says spokesperson Brandi Dean at the Johnson Space flight Center in Houston, Texas. Using the SLS rocket, the spacecraft could ultimately "go to a number of destinations further afield, including asteroids, Mars or Mars's moons'", says Dean.
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