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NASA Delays Orion's First Manned Flight Until 2023
The Verge reports that the first manned flight planned for the Orion crew capsule has been delayed, and is now slated to take place in 2023, rather than the previously hoped-for 2021. The delay is based on both budget and design considerations; Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration at NASA, said at a press conference yesterday that several changes have been made to save weight in the capsule, including reducing the number of panels that make up the craft's cone. The article notes So far, Orion has met most of its major milestones. The spacecraft made its first uncrewed test flight in December 2014. The engineering team also recently demonstrated the Orion could land safely despite the failure of two of its parachutes. NASA hopes to eventually launch the Orion on top of the Space Launch System (SLS) — a giant rocket the space agency is currently building to go beyond lower Earth orbit. The plan is to send astronauts on the Orion to Mars sometime in the 2030s.
to go basically nowhere. It's a vacuum, fools, not some mythical "final frontier".
Luckily, Dragon will be flying a bit sooner.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Orion first made an uncrewed test flight in 2014. They hope to make the first crewed flight by 2023.
And then send a crew to mars in the 2030s.
Really? 9 years to go from test to *first* manned flight, then 7-17 years to a manned Mars mission?
They just make this up over Starbucks?
A Dragon will go to Mars before Orion at this pace. Any living Apollo engineers must be gagging on such progress. Let them get their slide rules out and build this with an Android smartphone for a computer and two trips on a Saturn V. Sheesh. We are losing the ability to do big things.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.