NASA, ESA televised briefing on Orion-MPV Service Module, Wednesday, January 16

Following unmanned testing beginning in September 2014, the Orion-MPV stack may begin crewed flights two years later. The Service Module design above represents designs from 2006 [NASA].

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will hold a joint news conference Wednesday, January 16, at 1630 UT to discuss details of an agreement for ESA to provide the Service Module portion of the Orion-MPV manned vehicle, still scheduled to begin unmanned flight testing in September 2014.

NASA-TV will carry the briefing live from Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The agreement, according to NASA, "expands on the successful partnership between the agencies on the International Space Station and other activities," and "ensures continued international collaboration as humans explore new frontiers in the solar system."

The Orion Service Module (SM) is not presently a planned part of crew capsule tests, beginning in 2014. Exploration Test Mission-1 (EMT-1) will be lofted into high-Earth orbit on a Delta-IV heavy booster. NASA's next "man-rated" booster, the Space Launch System (SLS), may not be ready before 2017.

The news conference participants will include Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations; Thomas Reiter, ESA director of Human Spaceflight and Operations; Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager and Bernardo Patti, ESA manager of International Space Station operations.

Presently scratched into "out years" of NASA funding are proposed manned flights of the Orion-MPV system ferrying crews to the International Space Station as early as 2017, with a possible return to lunar orbit, a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and long duration flights in the decade following.

The Orion system is all that remains of the crewed segment of the cancelled Constellation program, whose trailing legacy includes the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the now-completed GRAIL lunar gravity mapping mission and the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) scheduled for launch later this year.

2012 Lunar Science Forum talks now online

Recorded sessions during the recently-held 2012 Lunar Science Forum have been uploaded and are now available online. 

The NASA Lunar Science Institute, at Moffett Field, California, made the widely anticipated announcement Sunday, July 29.

The 2012 NASA Lunar Science Forum was perhaps the best yet! If you missed the three-day meeting (July 17-19, 2012) at NASA Ames Research Center or if you just want to relive some of the best talks, the public Adobe Connect sessions are now available online at: http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/lsf2012/agenda

More than 300 scientists attended the fifth NASA Lunar Science Forum, sponsored by the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) at Ames Research Center. With data analysis from five U.S. spacecraft currently studying the Moon, plus several others that completed their missions in recent years, discoveries and advancements abound.

“The NLSI catalyzes collaborative research within and among its seven teams, but also strives to include and support the broader lunar science community in a variety of ways,” said Yvonne Pendleton, Director of the NLSI.

In his summary review of the conference, distinguished planetary scientist David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston said “We have made more progress in three years with the NLSI than was made in the previous 30 years of lunar studies, but a lot of questions remain unanswered that require a return to the lunar surface, using both robot and human explorers.”

In addition to discussing science results, the Forum attendees also focused their attention on the future. NASA officials praised the performance of the current NLSI and announced an expansion of the charter to allow additional emphasis on research that will support both science and exploration. In NASA organizational terms, this means a closer alliance between the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Directorate (HEOMD).

The joint presentation at the Forum by NASA Associate Administrators John Grunsfeld (SMD) and William Gerstenmaier (HEOMD) outlined their rationale for the expansion of the Institute, providing insight into the new era of enhanced collaboration between science and exploration.