Hi,
My name is Howard Hu. I am the acting
program manager for NASA's Orion program.
We are very excited that we could share
with you the progress of our three
spacecraft that is going to support the
Artemis missions.
Orion is NASA's next generation human
spacecraft
taking the first woman and the next man
to the lunar surface.
We are very excited to be here and share
with you our progress.
Now we can't do this without the very
many people that support the
Orion program and of course we have
suppliers
and people who help build the spacecraft
across all 50 states including
Washington DC and Puerto Rico.
Now we also have our European partners
who are significant contributors to the
Orion program across 10 countries in
Europe. They help
also build the spacecraft parts and
components (that) are necessary
for us to fly to the Moon. Let me tell
you a little bit about the Artemis I (one)
spacecraft. Earlier this year we just
completed a very important system level
test
that demonstrated Orion's ability to
survive
and operate robustly in space.
It was the environmental test at Plum
Brook Station
where we simulated the space environment
for vacuum and temperature.
And of course Orion passed with flying
colors and demonstrated our readiness
for flight. Now we only have a few
remaining
assembly tasks at KSC to pull the entire
vehicle together
and then shortly after that we will be
ready to hand over
to our ground processing team and
stacking on the Space Launch System so
(a) very exciting time
for us regarding Artemis I (one).
Now Artemis II (two) we're also making
significant progress there. Just recently
we finished bonding over 180 tiles for
the heat shield and the heat shield
is at the bottom of the crew module
which keeps the crew safe as we re-enter
the atmosphere. It's a very high
temperature 5,000 degrees
so the the crew needs a lot of
protection and that's what the
heat shield material provides and so
very exciting
news there that we were able to
finish there. And of course we're making
a lot of progress
pulling the entire spacecraft
together
for Artemis II (two) doing a lot of
work installing the hardware that's
needed
to operate the vehicle and of course
getting all the
electronics and other components inside
the crew module as well. So,
lots of great progress there. And lots of
great progress over in Europe as well
as the Europeans are pulling their final
pieces of the European service module
that provides the power and the
propulsive capability
for the spacecraft so that's coming
along as well. And of course
they will be delivering their part of
the spacecraft and then
we will be putting that together and be
ready for Artemis II (two) in the future
as well. And finally for Artemis III (three) we're
also making great progress there.
You know, the Europeans already have
their primary structure in work.
Thales Alenia is delivering that in late
September so that's great progress.
And of course, on our own crew module.
We've got the first panel built.
This is the panel with the
windows so it's very exciting that we're
gonna have this capability
delivered in the near future and
very excited that that's completed.
And that's the first piece that we're
gonna have for Artemis III (three) on the crew
module.
Now I want to congratulate Lockheed and
AMRO for
making this possible. It's
certainly very exciting
you know. We're getting close to flight
for Artemis I (one) and then we're making
great progress on II (two) and of course
we've started making great progress on
Artemis III (three) as well so really exciting
times for the program.
With that, I am going to turn over to
Lockheed Martin. I will introduce Mike
Hawes
who is the vice president for Human
Exploration
and also the Lockheed program manager
for Orion.
Well, thank you Howard. As NASA's prime
contractor for the Orion
program and the spacecraft we're
talking about,
we certainly work constantly day and
night to
meet these aggressive schedules and to
make sure that we're ready
for the Artemis missions as Howard
described.
Today we're particularly excited because
we're here to highlight
one of our great suppliers so we'll be
joined virtually
by Mike Riley from AMRO
manufacturing which is in El Monte,
California.
And AMRO manufactures the cone panels or
the
sloped pieces. If you think of the
Orion capsule, these
sloped pieces along the top of the
capsule are really critical components
and that's what the AMRO team
manufactures. We're actually
celebrating the completion of that first
panel
and so I would like to actually ask
Mike Riley
to talk about AMRO. Mike is the CEO of
AMRO. He's actually the third generation
of the Riley family
to run AMRO and they have been a
fantastic partner for the Orion program.
So Mike, I'll turn it over to you and ask
you to explain how you machine the
panels
and have your team show us what it is
that you do so well.
Thanks for the introduction Mike. ARMO
has been in business for over 40 years
and I'm honored to be a third generation
member of the AMRO family.
AMRO has been involved in the Orion
program since day one
and we are honored and excited to see
what the program has evolved into.
Standing next to me here we have one of
the cone panels for the Orion pressure
vessel -- the window panel.
It's these windows that the next
American astronauts will be looking at
the lunar surface through.
The first astronauts to do so since
Apollo 17.
This panel is currently complete and
ready to ship to Michoud.
We are also working on the second and
third cone panels which will be
completed soon and also on their way to
Michoud.
Bola, tell us a little bit about your
experience working on the Orion panels.
These panels are very complex. We
understand the importance
of position and safety required here at
AMRO.
We use the latest technology to make
these
special panels. We also gotta make sure
we make good parts so the Astronauts
come back home
safe to see their families.
I'm here with Program Manager David
Thompson. David and I are standing in
between
two SLS panels. David can you tell us a
little bit about the panels that we're
standing in between?
Yeah, I'd love to Mike. Over here to my
left, we have an engine section
core stage barrel panel
for SLS. Right now you can see it's in
the flat configuration.
We're getting it ready for inspection.
Then we'll head over to forming.
And then over here to the right, we have
an LVSA forward panel.
LVSA is launch vehicle stage adapter.
It's in the same flat state it will be
going over to forming after inspection.
After this, you'll see a nice great
contour.
And then we will get it ready for the
customer.
Excellent! Thanks, David. Thanks for all
your hard work to make this program a
success.
Now, Mr. Howard Hu, back to you. All right,
Now we'll answer some questions that
we received. The first one
is from the Houston Chronicle -- Andrea
Leinfelder.
She asks, when is Artemis III (three) set to launch
and what is Lockheed Martin's doing to
ensure Orion is ready to meet this
deadline.
Let me see, I'll take the first part of
the question and then I'll hand over to
Mike Hawes
to answer the second part. Right now,
Artemis
III (three) -- we're targeting 2024
to put the first woman and the next man
on the Moon.
Very exciting times. We're making great
progress. Not only is Lockheed making
great progress, but also the Europeans as
I mentioned earlier (are)
making significant progress with the
primary structure so
really great work going on there and
we'll be ready
to meet those challenges and get us to
the Moon in 2024.
So with that, I'll turn over to Mike to
answer the second part.
Thanks, Howard. So let's talk about what
the Lockheed Martin team is doing
particularly for Artemis III (three). I mean,
we've already talked about
we're actually working on completing
Artemis I (one),
building up Artemis II (two) and now starting
the manufacturing
of Artemis III (three). So, we've talked about the
panel manufacturing and we'll talk a bit
more about that
but we have parts coming together from
our suppliers across the country like
Howard said.
We have suppliers in all 50 states and
Puerto Rico
and so we are pulling all of those
pieces together. We're making deliveries
to our team at KSC. We're making
deliveries to the European team
and we will continue through the
next year. If you look at
2023 targets to have this spacecraft
ready
to be able to fly in 24 we have a lot
that's going to be coming together just
in the next year.
All right, thanks Mike. Let's see, we've
got another question.
This one I think is is suited for
Mike Riley
at AMRO to answer. Phillip Sloss with
NASA Spaceflight.com asks -- Can you tell
us how the cone panel is manufactured at
AMRO and what is the status of the
other two cone panels for Artemis
III (three)? Sure thing Howard,
that's a great question. Phillip, here
with me to answer that
is Program Manager David Thompson.
Thank you, Mike. So how is a cone panel
made?
So it starts out as a flat plate
weighing approximately
13,000 pounds. As you can see here, it's
about 200 pounds in the formed condition.
This panel is a culmination of different
departments here at AMRO.
The first is forming, then we go into
five-axis machining. We have CNC
programming.
We have laser inspection, a heat age
operation.
We go out to outside processing and then
finally we have final assembly.
The other two cone panels which will be
friction stir welded to this panel
are currently in production and will be
completed in a couple of months.
All right, we have another question.
This one is...
let's see if Mike Hawes could answer
this one. Andrea at the Houston
Chronicle also wants to know
how many panels total come together on
the Orion spacecraft
and how many parts, nuts, bolts are need
to assemble the entire spacecraft?
So Mike, I think you got a tough one.
So, obviously there are thousands of
components that come together to
make the Orion spacecraft and
again a reference back to the crew
module,
just to build the crew module we're
going to talk in the order of 200,000
parts. When we talk about you know
all of the fasteners and bonds and
the tiles that cover the surface, so
hundreds of thousands of parts and
that doesn't even include
the European service module and the
launch abort system that actually gets
stacked on top of this.
But I want to focus on the the key
pieces of the pressure vessel as we call
it
and how we have improved that over
time. We're focused here
with the AMRO team on the cone panels.
There are three cone panels
but there are only four other pieces of
the structure that all get welded
together.
When we started on the Orion project we
were over 30 panels that had to be
welded together
and so over time we have simplified that
process down to just
seven and we've saved mass, we save time
we save cost
in order to do that. And so, this is the
first panel
that we've been talking about today. We
will
continue to deliver panels. AMRO will
continue to deliver those panels
through the course of the fall. All seven
major pieces of the pressure vessel
structure
will come together at the Michoud
Assembly Facility in New Orleans
by this fall, late this fall.
And then we'll start to weld those
together with the friction stir welding
process that
we have developed on earlier NASA
programs and used today
by September of 21. Then we would
actually expect to deliver that pressure
vessel to Florida to the team in the
Operations and Checkout facility and
then they'll really start building up
the entire spacecraft.
And finally we have one last question
from Leonard David from Newsspace.com.
He asks -- with the increasing role of
entrepreneurs in space,
how best can the larger space primes
work with these groups?
Any advice on this? Let's see, I think Mike
Hawes and I both could answer this
question. I'll start first.
You know, we are certainly working
together
with the commercial partners to improve
not only
their design but also give them data so
we've given a range of
not only requirements data, products test
data that
we've generated, reports, and of course
all the
design aspects that are important to
the commercial space flight programs we
provided as well.
And some of the examples include
parachute data which
obviously provides a safe landing for
the crew,
aerothermal aerodynamics database
and data, all the testing that we've done
across the board, the GNC guidance
navigation control
design, and also re-entry data.
So lots of significant items -- over a
thousand products
that we've given to these commercial
partners to enable them
to be successful as well. So I look (it) as
a partnership
across all the NASA programs to help
each other and learn from each other.
And let's see if if Mike has additional
inputs.
So the question of entrepreneurial
companies is
a really fascinating one. We've seen
so much happen in just the last few
years
with the supply chain that we have on
Orion and Howard didn't mention that
earlier that we have
hundreds of companies across the country
that are all
providing and probably half of our
suppliers are actually
small businesses so when we talk about
newly started companies entrepreneurial
companies they certainly fit in that
kind of range.
All right. Thank you to Dr. Hawes and
Mike Riley for helping me today and
joining us
on giving a status of Orion.
Today it's been a great day What
getting
a discussion with you in terms of our
progress and
fielding some questions from the
reporters, so
appreciate that, and stay tuned we've
got a lot of exciting things happening
in Orion.
we've got a lot of great progress, like I
said across all three vehicles.
We'll certainly talk about
getting ready for launch, or what we
call path to the pad,
and supporting all our Artemis missions
going forward it's a very exciting time
for us at NASA
and looking forward to you joining us on
that journey.
Thank you!