A component failure in NASA’s deep space crew capsule could take months to resolve

Engineers are racing to repair a failed piece of equipment on NASA’s future crew Orion capsule in deep space before its first flight into space. It may take months of work for replacement and repair. Right now, NASA engineers and Orion’s primary contractor Lockheed Martin are trying to figure out how best to repair the component and how long the repairs will take.

In early November, Lockheed Martin engineers working on the Orion noticed that a power component inside the vehicle had failed, according to an internal email and internal PowerPoint presentation viewed by The Verge. Known as a power and data unit, or PDU, the component is a “data / main power box,” according to the email, responsible for activating the key systems Orion needs during flight.

Orion is a key part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send the first woman and next man to the moon by 2024. The cone-shaped capsule is designed to be launched over a future rocket called the Space Launch System, or SLS , a vehicle that NASA has built over the past decade. To test the capabilities of both of these systems, NASA plans to launch an unmanned Orion capsule over the SLS on the rocket’s first flight in late 2021, a mission called Artemis I.

While the SLS has yet to undergo many key tests before that flight, the Orion capsule that is expected to fly on that first mission is mostly assembled, waiting in Florida at NASA’s operational and control facility at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA had planned to transfer the Orion capsule to the Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) at KSC on December 7, although that launch may be postponed due to this problem. When asked for comment, NASA headed The Verge to a short blog post published this afternoon outlining failure. Lockheed Martin did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

Photo by Ben Smegelsky / NASA

Replacing the PDU is not easy. The component is difficult to reach: it is found inside an adapter that connects Orion to its service module: a cylindrical trunk that provides support, propulsion and power to the capsule during its journey through space. To reach the PDU, Lockheed Martin could remove the Orion crew capsule from its service module, but it’s a lengthy process that could take up to a year. It would take a full nine months to take the vehicle apart and reassemble it, plus three months for subsequent tests, according to the presentation.

Lockheed has another option, but it has never been done before and may involve additional risks, Lockheed Martin engineers acknowledge in their presentation. To do this, engineers would have to tunnel through the outside of the adapter by removing some of the adapter’s outer panels to reach the PDU. The panels were not designed to be removed this way, but this scenario could take up to four months to complete if engineers find a way to do so.

A third option is that Lockheed Martin and NASA can fly the Orion capsule as it is. The PDU has failed in such a way that it loses redundancy within the unit, so it can still function. But for a risk-averse agency like NASA, flying a vehicle without a back-up plan isn’t exactly an attractive option. It is still unclear what went wrong inside the unit, which was tested before being installed on the spacecraft, according to a person familiar with the matter.

If engineers choose to remove Orion from its service module, the capsule’s first flight on the SLS could be delayed beyond its current date of November 2021. But the SLS suffered a number of delays: it was supposed to fly for the first time. in 2017 but hasn’t done so yet. It is unclear whether the SLS itself will reach the flight date of November 2021; a key test of the rocket arriving at the end of the year has been postponed, with no new target date being set. So it’s possible that Lockheed Martin and NASA could fix Orion before the SLS is ready to fly.

Any further delays at Artemis add uncertainty to NASA’s lunar landing timeline. NASA hopes to land astronauts on the moon by 2024, although many experts are skeptical that such a mission can be completed in time. Artemis I is vulnerable to other possible delays, but component failure adds an extra layer of uncertainty to when the Orion and SLS combo takes off.

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