Europe’s Enabling Contribution to the US Human Space Exploration Programme: the Service Module for the Orion Crew Module
- Paper number
IAC-13,A5,4-D2.8,5,x18312
- Author
Dr. Mark Kinnersley, EADS Astrium Space Transportation GmbH, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Klaus Pietsch, EADS Space, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Philippe Berthe, European Space Agency (ESA), The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Ms. Kathleen Schubert, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States
- Coauthor
Ms. Julie Grantier, NASA Glenn Research Center, United States
- Coauthor
Mr. Laurence Price, Lockheed Martin (Space Systems Company), United States
- Year
2013
- Abstract
NASA is designing the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle MPCV (Orion) as the future space exploration vehicle for crewed human missions beyond low Earth orbit. MPCV comprises the Crew Module, Service Module, Spacecraft Adapter, Launch Abort System, Crew Module Adapter, and Spacecraft Adapter Jettison - Fairings. At the ESA conference at ministerial level 2012 it was decided to provide a barter element from ESA to NASA to offset the Common System Operations Cost (CSOC) obligations for Europe’s continued participation within the ISS programme for the period 2018-2020. This resulted in ESA agreeing to develop and provide a flight model as well as flight spares for the Service Module for the EM-1 mission. Astrium, leveraging its ATV experience will through its Bremen site be the industrial prime for the MPCV-SM, working together with partner companies throughout Europe. Provision of an additional service module for the EM-2 mission is under discussion. The MPCV is slated to fly for the first time in 2017. This mission will be the un-crewed EM-1 (Exploration Mission 1), where the complete MPCV (comprising ESA's supplied SM) will be lofted by SLS for a lunar flyby mission. In 2021 the crewed mission EM-2 will take place, bringing Astronauts to orbiting the moon. After EM-2, the MPCV spacecraft will become NASA’s crew exploration vehicle towards the moon, near Earth Objects and Mars. By agreeing to have ESA providing the Service Module of MPCV, NASA is recognizing the reliability of the partnership with Europe built through Columbus and ATV. Indeed, the Service Module is an essential, critical part of the MPCV providing propulsion, power, thermal control, attitude control, life support consumables to the Crew Module. This paper will present the overall development and production logic of the MPCV-SM, and the status of the programme from technical and programmatic perspectives.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)