Nasa has unveiled a design for a spaceship that could propel four astronauts on a six-month voyage to Mars.
Engineers are already assembling of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or MPCV, which is based on the Orion crew capsule developed to return men and women to the moon.
They hope to have the shuttle ready to orbit the Earth within five years and eventually make the 47million-mile trip to Mars. The Constellation Project that was building Orion had initially been scrapped by President Barack Obama. But he relaunched it in April last year after changing the object of the mission. Instead of going back to the moon, Mr Obama announced that Nasa would aim to reach an asteroid by 2020 and after that send astronauts to Mars.
The latest MPCV craft is designed to be more versatile than previous capsules and also features an enhanced emphasis on crew safety.
Nasa Associate Administrator Douglas Cooke said it made sense to stick with Orion-based vehicle.
'We've made a lot of progress on Orion,' he told the Voice of America website. 'We have a ground test article that is a full structure with a lot of the systems actually installed into it for testing. 'So, it's well down the road. It answers the requirements and represents a significant investment in that path at this point.' Although Mars is the objective for the MPCV, in the short term Nasa has more limited ambitions.
Before making any long voyages, it will be used to support missions at the International Space Station, which is just above the Earth's orbit,
To facilitate this, designers Lockheed Martin has built a huge test area at its Waterton Canyon site south of Denver, where full-size mock-ups both the station and Orion can practise manoeuvres.
The test version of the pod, though bare of the ceramic covering on the outside, is complete inside.
Orion was originally part of President George W. Bush's $100billion moon mission, called Constellation.
But President Obama cancelled Constellation in January last, saying the space programme would instead focus on more advanced rocket technology. Mr Obama revived the Orion portion of the project two months later, with administration officials saying it would be the space station's escape vehicle. But experts say Nasa are pushing to use the MPCV for more than a replacement for the retiring Space Shuttle fleet. Tariq Malik, who is managing editor of website Space.com says the redesigned capsule is the space agency's all-purpose vehicle for a variety of missions beyond earth's orbit.
'Visiting satellites if it's needed. It's going to have a spacewalk capability, which the original Orion capsule as it was prior to this announcement, would not have. 'And then they would be able to use it as the core vehicle, the transfer vehicle for deep space missions.
'You know you would attach a module or some other kind of addition on to it if they are going to be up in space for extended excursions, and then they use it as their truck,' he said.
Mr Cooke says it will also be able to rendezvous with another, larger spaceship to continue its voyage to the Moon, Mars or beyond.
© Daily Mail, London |
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