{"id":3201,"date":"2018-01-18T23:02:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T23:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=3201"},"modified":"2018-01-19T23:30:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T23:30:52","slug":"where-no-man-has-gone-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=3201","title":{"rendered":"Where no man has gone before"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lockheed Martin\u2019s Orion program aims for Mars<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n

By Jan Wondra<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s expanding role in space exploration by NASA will help take humans farther than they\u2019ve ever gone before.\u00a0 <\/span>NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft, being built at Lockheed Martin in Waterton Canyon in Douglas County, will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry a manned crew to space, with the ultimate goal over a series of missions of reaching Mars by the 2030s. The approximate date for Orion\u2019s next mission, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), is September 2018 and flight operations will be conducted by NASA out of Johnson Space Center in Texas. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSpace is hard \u2013 it\u2019s a very unforgiving environment. We have to prove ourselves along the way,\u201d said Casey O\u2019Hayre, systems engineer for avionics on Orion at Lockheed Martin, while discussing the multiple test stages of the Orion vehicle. \u201cI work the physical configuration of all the aviation components on the vehicle\u2014the computer, the guidance system, and the electronics on the Orion. I\u2019ve been in this role for almost two years, and before that I worked as a mechanical engineer on the physical packaging design of the Orion, building the enclosures around the crew.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

About 700 Lockheed Martin employees are at work on the Orion program in Waterton Canyon. Among the stages to which O\u2019Hayre referred, is the Orion vehicle tested last December, which flew two orbits around the Earth. The exploration vehicle this team develops will ultimately carry a crew into space, sustain the crew during space travel, provide emergency abort capability if needed and provide safe re-entry to Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Casey O\u2019Hayre, a Colorado School of Mines alum, in front of the December 2014 launch site for Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Photo courtesy of ULA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s called Exploration Mission-1, or EM-1, and this will be a stepping stone toward human deep space exploration,\u201d said O\u2019Hayre. \u201cUltimately, these missions will build up to a manned mission to Mars. These stages are important. The September 2018 mission is a full-up vehicle with all the life support systems in place. We\u2019ll go beyond low-earth orbit and into a transfer orbit around the moon. The EM-1 will be in orbit for 17 days.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Hayre stressed how much this mission is an international effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe largest chunk of workers is in Waterton Canyon because we are the prime contractor on this mission. But the development crew is spread out across the country,\u201d said O\u2019Hayre.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cBetween Lockheed Martin and NASA, we have people in 30 different states working on this and a collaboration with the European Space Agency.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Hayre was frank about the greatest challenges for the Orion team developing the EM-1 craft.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my time working on aerospace projects, I can tell you there are a lot of things that are problems that we have to solve to go into space. Some of them, until recently, weren\u2019t recognized as the huge problem they are,\u201d said O\u2019Hayre. \u201cOne of the biggest is the radiation environment \u2013 every piece of electronics we put on board has to be proven to be radiation-proof. The level of radiation (in space) fries electronics\u2014it\u2019s also detrimental to humans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That radiation comes from a deep space, from the sun and from belts of energetic charged particles held in place around the Earth by its magnetic field. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIts cosmic radiation, and solar radiation, and also from the Earth\u2019s Van Allen belt,\u201d said O\u2019Hayre \u201cWe got a better understanding of this with EFT-1 (Exploration Flight Test-1). With the next Orion craft, we\u2019ve built in conditions to protect people. We have sensors for detecting radiation and a shelter on board that can protect the astronauts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Hayre admits that his passion for space not only goes far back in his own history but that it is linked to human\u2019s fascination with discovering our place in the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Orion\u2019s upcoming Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), seen here in this illustration, will orbit the moon for a little more than two weeks and test out vital systems on the spacecraft. Illustration courtesy of Lockheed Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGetting to have a hand in space exploration to go beyond where we\u2019ve been before, and getting to have a hand in a mission that will go to Mars to put humans back on the road to exploring deep space is thrilling,\u201d said O\u2019Hayre, who did consider applying to be an astronaut on the Mars mission. \u201cWe\u2019re designing this for a long mission and we\u2019re taking into account what the crew is going to need. This is going to be their home for nine months.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Asked why the Orion mission to Mars is so worthwhile, O\u2019Hayre turned thoughtful.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lockheed Martin\u2019s engineering team in Littleton is evaluating a new method of acoustic testing using the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) crew module. The method, called Direct Field Acoustic testing, uses more than 1,500 customized, high-energy speakers to create a representation of the intense sound Orion will experience during launch and ascent on the Space Launch System (SLS) in 2018. Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHumans have an innate desire to explore and this is our next step in exploration,\u201d said O\u2019Hayre. \u201cActually going to another planet and finding out what is there, will help to understand our own planet better. Mars most likely used to have a more hospitable environment. We need to find out what happened to Mars. Where did the water go? Personally, I think the ultimate goal is that human beings should be a multi-planet species.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lockheed Martin\u2019s Orion program aims for Mars By Jan Wondra Colorado\u2019s expanding role in space exploration by NASA will help take humans farther than they\u2019ve ever gone before.\u00a0 NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft, being built at Lockheed Martin in Waterton Canyon in Douglas County, will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry a manned crew to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aerospace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}