Component failure in NASA deep space crew capsule could take months to repair

Engineers rush to fix faulty equipment on NASA’s future deep space crew capsule, Orion, before its maiden flight into space. Replacement and repair can take months of work. Right now, NASA engineers and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin are trying to figure out the best way to fix the component and how long the repairs will take.

In early November, Lockheed Martin engineers working on Orion noticed that a power component inside the vehicle had failed, according to an internal email and internal PowerPoint presentation seen by The edge. Known as a Power and Data Unit, or PDU, the component is a “main power / data box,” according to the email, responsible for powering up key systems Orion needs during the process. flight.

Orion is a critical part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send the first woman and the next man to the moon by 2024. The cone-shaped capsule is designed to be launched over a future rocket. called Space Launch System, or SLS. , a vehicle that NASA has been building for ten years. To test the capabilities of these two systems, NASA plans to launch an unequipped Orion capsule over the SLS during the rocket’s first flight at the end of 2021 – a mission called Artemis I.

Although the SLS still has many key tests to undergo before this flight, the Orion capsule that was to fly for this first mission is mainly assembled, on standby in Florida at the NASA operations and control facility at Kennedy Space. Center. NASA had planned to transfer the Orion capsule to the Multi-Charge Processing Facility (MPPF) at KSC on December 7, although that deployment may be postponed due to this issue. When asked for comment, NASA directed The edge to a short blog post published today describing the failure. Lockheed Martin did not respond to a request for comment before the post.

Photo by Ben Smegelsky / NASA

Replacing the PDU is not easy. The component is difficult to reach: it’s located inside an adapter that connects Orion to its service module – a cylindrical chest that provides support, propulsion, and power to the capsule as it travels through space. To access the PDU, Lockheed Martin could remove the Orion crew capsule from its service module, but it’s a lengthy process that could take up to a year. It would take up to nine months to take the vehicle apart and reassemble it, in addition to three months for subsequent testing, depending on presentation.

Lockheed has another option, but it’s never been done before and may come with additional risks, Lockheed Martin engineers acknowledge in their presentation. To do this, engineers would have to tunnel through the exterior of the adapter by removing some of the exterior panels of the adapter to access the PDU. The panels weren’t designed to be removed this way, but this scenario can only take four months if engineers find a way to do it.

A third option is that Lockheed Martin and NASA could fly the Orion capsule as is. The PDU has failed so that it has lost redundancy within the unit, so it can still operate. But in a low-risk agency like NASA, piloting a vehicle without a back-up plan isn’t exactly an attractive option. It is still unclear what went wrong inside the unit, which was tested before it was installed on the spacecraft, according to a person familiar with the matter.

If engineers choose to remove Orion from its service module, the capsule’s first flight on the SLS could be delayed beyond its current date of November 2021. But the SLS has experienced its own set of delays: it was supposed to fly for the first time in 2017 but has not yet done so. It is also unclear whether the SLS itself will perform the November 2021 flight; a key rocket test to come at the end of the year has been postponed, with no new target date set. So it’s possible that Lockheed Martin and NASA could fix Orion before the SLS is ready to fly.

Any further delay for Artemis adds uncertainty to NASA’s lunar landing schedule. NASA hopes to land astronauts on the moon by 2024, although many experts doubt that such a mission can be completed on time. Artemis I is vulnerable to other possible delays, but component failure adds an additional level of uncertainty as the Orion and SLS combo takes off.