WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin formally delivered to NASA May 1 the Orion spacecraft for Artemis 2, keeping that mission on track for a launch in early 2026.
NASA took acceptance of the Orion spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, signing paperwork marking completion of Lockheed’s work to assemble the spacecraft. The spacecraft is now the responsibility of the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program.
EGS will now take Orion to processing facilities at the center to load consumables such as propellant, water and oxygen, followed by installation of its launch abort system. Orion will then go to the Vehicle Assembly Building to be integrated with the Space Launch System rocket currently being assembled there.
“Today was a big step by Lockheed Martin — really, I think, for the Artemis enterprise — in going back and putting some more footprints on the moon,” said Kirk Shireman, vice president of human space exploration and Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin, in a call with reporters about the delivery of Orion to NASA.
This Orion will carry four NASA and Canadian Space Agency astronauts around the moon on a 10-day mission, the first crewed flight beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. It is scheduled for launch no later than April 2026.
This Orion includes systems not on the spacecraft that flew the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in late 2022, including those needed by astronauts on board. Shireman said assembly of the Artemis 2 Orion went “much faster” than for Artemis 1, but didn’t specify by how much.
Artemis 2, once scheduled for late 2024, was delayed by an investigation of the erosion of the Orion heat shield seen on Artemis 1. NASA decided in December to fly the heat shield as-is for the Orion on Artemis 2, making changes to the formulation of the Avcoat material for the Orion heat shields flying on Artemis 3 and later missions.
What ultimately drove the schedule for delivery of the Artemis 2 Orion was the replacement of batteries in the spacecraft. Shireman said Lockheed received the new batteries in late November and early December, but one of the four needed to be replaced. “The long pole was the batteries,” he said.
When Lockheed got the new batteries, the company had a schedule that called for delivering Orion in late May. “I think we’re extremely, extremely proud to have been not only able to hold but accelerate that date,” he said, moving up the handover by nearly a month. “That’s pretty phenomenal in a complicated spacecraft like this.”
Lockheed is now focused on the Orion for Artemis 3, which is scheduled to be delivered to NASA in the fall of 2026. “We’re behind at this point in time, but I would say not irrecoverably behind,” he said, noting that the company would be running three shifts to try to catch up.
That includes work on the Artemis 3 heat shield, which will use the new Avcoat formulation with increased permeability to prevent gases from being trapped inside and breaking off material. “We have all the 106 blocks” of Avcoat that will be used on the heat shield, Shireman said, “and we’re actually going to start laying it up here Monday.”
Lockheed continues to look for ways to accelerate assembly of the Orion spacecraft and reduce costs. “We want to achieve a pace of one flight a year. We’re not there yet,” he said. “We want to get there. We think it’s achievable goal.”
That push to accelerate Orion production, though, comes as the new administration ponders changes to the overall Artemis architecture. Jared Isaacman, nominated to be NASA administrator, said at his confirmation hearing April 9 that he is committed to the current architecture for the near term but that it is not the “long-term way to get to and from the moon and Mars with great frequency.” That could include replacing the Space Launch System with commercial vehicles.
“The fastest way to get Americans back to the moon — we want to beat the Chinese — is got to be flying Artemis 3 on SLS,” Shireman said. He added, though, that he was open to considering alternatives to SLS, like Blue Origin’s New Glenn, for launching Orion.
“Could you fly Orion on a different vehicle, like a New Glenn? I believe the answer is yes,” he said. It would require modifications, but “nothing that’s extremely difficult” to carry out.
“If the administration wants to modify the architecture, we will be happy to work with them and achieve the goals of the administration,” he said.