History is
scheduled to repeat itself.
Sometime in
early 2014 a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle will be
erected at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 37B. Atop that booster will be
positioned an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). As if to mark 50 years
since the first Apollo command module was launched into space from that same
launch complex, the Orion will be lofted into space for the first time from the
same site on its orbital flight test.
On May 28, 1964
a Saturn I, Block II (the SA-6 launch vehicle) lifted off from Launch Complex
37B. On the top of SA-6 was the Apollo boilerplate 13 command module, its boost
protective cover (BPC) and its launch escape tower. This payload was the first
piece of Apollo-configured hardware to be sent into space. In that era the plan
was to one day have astronauts fly aboard an Apollo spacecraft boosted by the Saturn
I, Block II, so the entire Apollo configuration and the booster were being
tested as a unit. Also being tested, however, were a number of other things-
such as aerodynamic heating on the braces of the launch escape tower as well as
on the external protuberances of the overall spacecraft, the integrity of the
BPC and the ability of the jettison motor to pull the escape tower from the
command module. The flight went into Earth orbit and performed four orbits
prior to the planned depletion of battery power. Once the batteries were
depleted the boilerplate command module was left on its own as no recovery had
been planned. After an additional 50 orbits the inert command module reentered
over the Pacific Ocean near Canton Island. All mission objectives were
accomplished satisfactorily.
Four more
flights similar to SA-6’s configuration were launched from Complex 37B and
following SA-10 the launch complex was adapted and used to loft two Saturn IBs.
Complex 37 was later abandoned in 1971. The following year all of the launch
service structures were removed and the facility remained idle for the next 30
years. In 2002 Complex 37 was "repurposed" for use by the United Launch
Alliance for their new Delta IV vehicle. Since then scores of these new launch
vehicles have flown from Complex 37.
In keeping
with the Congressional mandate that the United States must have a Federal manned
access to space beyond low Earth orbit, NASA resurrected the Orion spacecraft
from its cancellation by the Obama administration. Under development by the
Lockheed Martin Corporation, the political winds have blown the Orion from being
the exploration architecture of tomorrow, to a canceled piece of hardware, to a
rescue pod for the international space station. Finally, in 2011, it was returned
by Congressional mandate to its proper place as America's space exploration
vehicle for the future. Oddly, in what can easily be considered as a political
face-saving move for the Obama administration, NASA pointlessly renamed the
Orion vehicle, (which the president had previously cancelled,) the Multi-Purpose
Crew Vehicle or “MPCV.” Of course much like the additional four digits that the
post office pointlessly added to everyone's zip code, almost no one outside of
NASA's politically appointed upper management actually calls the vehicle the
MPCV- instead everyone just uses the name Orion.
In order for
its development to mature, the Orion will have to be flight tested in space. The
only operational United States booster capable of lofting the Orion is the
Delta IV Heavy. Thus, circumstances have set the stage for history to repeat
itself at Launch Complex 37. In the first week of November 2011, NASA officially
decided that it would conduct an unmanned Orion flight that is being titled the
Exploration Flight Test 1, or “EFT-1.” Now scheduled for some time in early
2014 and using the next Delta IV Heavy in the pipeline, the EFT-1 will fly a
mission that is somewhat similar to the SA-6 flight that launched from Complex
37 some 50 years earlier.
Current
plans, as of this writing, call for an un-crewed Orion capsule to be mounted
atop the Delta IV Heavy and topped with an inert launch escape system. Although
that escape rocket will be inert it will carry a live jettison motor. Just like
the SA-6 flight, an integral part of this test will be the jettison of the
escape system and its boost protective cover. Aerodynamic and thermal effects
on the vehicle will also be recorded and studied similar to how they were a
half-century ago. Thus, history is currently scheduled to repeat itself at
Launch Complex 37.
Unlike the
SA-6 flight, however, the EFT-1 mission will also test reentry characteristics
of the Orion command module at speeds near to those experienced on a return to
Earth from beyond low Earth orbit. The current plans are for the upper stage of
the Delta IV Heavy to boost the spacecraft into elliptical orbits with the
highest having a 3,671 mile apogee. During the mission the upper stage of the
Delta IV Heavy will make the initial orbital insertion burn and then a second
burn to alter the orbit to its maximum apogee as well as back into the Earth's
atmosphere. NASA hopes to reach a velocity in the neighborhood of 21,000 miles
per hour upon reentry. This will test the spacecraft’s heat shield in dynamics
similar to those of reentry from beyond low earth orbit. Following reentry the Orion
will also conduct a test of the parachute recovery system and splashed down in
the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California.
So it is
that this EFT-1 mission also mimics another historic spaceflight from nearly a
half century ago; Apollo 4. Launched on November 9, 1967, it lofted an unmanned
Apollo command module atop the first operational Saturn V booster to an
altitude of 9,767 nautical miles. It was then thrusted down into the atmosphere
by its service module engine in order to simulate the conditions of reentry
from the moon.
In its
entirety the EFT-1 flight will last just a little over six hours. It will be a
spectacular step toward the return of United States leadership in spaceflight. This
will also be a terrific demonstration of the Delta IV Heavy’s capability.
Although some in the spaceflight community will quibble that the SpaceX Falcon
9 Heavy could to do the same job, it's important to point out that the Delta IV
Heavy is an operational vehicle at this moment, but the Falcon 9 Heavy is still
on the drawing board. It is highly unlikely that the Falcon 9 Heavy can be made
ready for the EFT-1 mission within the next 18 months. It is also important to
separate what we can do, from what some space fans wish could be done.
In the end
of June, 2012 the pressure hull of the EFT-1’s Orion spacecraft arrived at KSC
from Huntsville. On the second day of July a large group of the remaining KSC
employees as well as political and contractor VIPs gathered in front of the zinc
chromate colored vehicle at the Operations and Checkout building and celebrated
its arrival. Chief among those speaking was NASA Deputy Administrator Lori
Garver, who spoke in glowing terms about the Orion and NASA’s future saying
that it “…marks a major accomplishment in the ambitious new American space
program that President Obama and Congress have approved.” She neglected,
however, to mention the fact that the president had earlier canceled the Orion,
then turned it into a rescue pod before the Congress wrote it back into
existence as an exploration spacecraft by way of a law which the president
grudgingly signed. She then went on to boast that it was just two years prior, in
that very same building that, “…President Obama set a goal to send humans
farther into space than we have ever been…” Of course she left out the fact
that on that same day he had also decreed that the Orion would become nothing
more than an escape pod for the International Space Station. Additionally she
boasted that the president’s plan would send us to an asteroid 13 years from
now and then on to Mars “…sometime in the 2030s…” Gee, how inspirational that
schedule is. Later she gleefully announced that the Orion would bring back to
KSC about 350 jobs, yet failed to mention that such a job count is about 5% of
those lost with the end of the Shuttle program.
In spite of
the political slight-of-hand with NASA’s human spaceflight program, at least
Orion has survived. With any luck it will be completed and then stacked atop
the its Delta IV Heavy. The EFT-1 will become the first launch of a NASA pathfinder
spacecraft intended for humans in more than 30 years. It is predictable that
the excitement surrounding the mission will be similar to that surrounding the
first free-flight drop test of the Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, which took place
two years after the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft. That is, of course,
if the politicians can keep their hands off of it. Thus, the answer to the
question; “What is the EFT-1?” goes a bit beyond the technical explanation of
the mission itself. The EFT-1 will be a shot of adrenalin to a NASA that is
currently on life-support and in guarded condition.
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