ORION Crew Exploration Vehicles, OCEVS, are the official spacecraft designs currently under development by NASA in collaboration with Lockheed Martin Corporation which was awarded the contract to build Orion on Aug. 31, 2006. A major component of the Vision for Space Exploration, OCEVS will be capable of carrying crew and cargo to the space station. They will rendezvous with a lunar landing module and an Earth departure stage in low-Earth orbit to carry crews to the moon and, ultimately, to Mars-bound vehicles assembled in low-Earth orbit. Orion will be the Earth entry vehicle for lunar and Mars returns.
While Orion’s design is similar in shape to the Apollo spacecraft, it is significantly larger and takes advantage of 21st century technology in computers, electronics, life support, propulsion and heat protection systems. Physicists and aeronautical engineers world wide concur that the Apollo-style heat shield is the best understood shape for re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, especially when returning directly from the moon. Orion will be 5 meters (16.5 feet) in diameter and have a mass of about 22.7 metric tons (25 tons). Inside, it will have more than two-and-a-half times the volume of an Apollo capsule.
This larger size will allow OCEVS to accommodate four crew members on missions to the moon, and six on missions to the International Space Station or Mars-bound spacecraft. Orion is scheduled initially to handle logistic flights to the International Space Station starting at the end of 2014 and carry out its first sortie to the moon by 2020.
Orion will launch from the same launch complex at Kennedy Space Center that currently launches the Space Shuttle after the last Shuttle orbiter is retired in 2010.
The Vision for Space Exploration as outlined by U.S. President George W. Bush is the official United States Space Policy and is regarded by many as a response to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the state of human spaceflight at NASA, and a way to regain public enthusiasm for space exploration.
The Vision calls for the space program to:
- Complete the International Space Station by 2010
- Retire the Space Shuttle by 2010
- Develop the Orion spacecraft (formerly known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle) by 2008, and conduct its first human spaceflight mission by 2014
- Develop Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles
- Explore the Moon with robotic spacecraft missions by 2008 and crewed missions by 2020
- Explore Mars and other destinations with robotic and crewed missions.
While these developments are proceeding on schedule at the federal level, private entrepreneurs such as Space Adventures' are working overtime to establish themselves as the premier pioneers of commercial space adventures and tourism. Their goal is to open the space frontier at the commercial level. Their aggressive approach led by company president Eric Anderson has generated media frenzy especially due to their elite clients. Richard Garriott will be the sixth space tourist, following Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, Anousheh Ansari and Charles Simonyi.
Richard Garriott, the son of renowned astronaut Owen Garriott, and who is also co-founder of the North American branch of NCSoft, the world's largest online game developer has already begun training for the flight, which is scheduled for October 2008, Space Adventures said in a statement.
The spaceflight's first commercial partner would be ExtremoZyme Inc., a biotechnology company founded by Garriott's father Owen, which plans to conduct experiments in space on proteins associated with human diseases.
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