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Ball Aerospace and Lockheed Martin—Onboard Orion To Oversee (Spacecraft—Cameras)

[SatNews] Three Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. flight cameras have been installed on the Orion Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1) crew module by prime contractor Lockheed Martin. Ball’s cameras are the first avionics hardware completed for the EFT-1, which is scheduled to launch in September 2014.

Orion is the nation’s first interplanetary spacecraft designed to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit on long-duration. Orion’s Testing and Verification program at Lockheed Martin continues to validate hardware and software integration, test subsystems and refine production operations to ensure the Orion team builds the safest, most reliable spacecraft possible to successfully execute a series of increasingly challenging human exploration missions on the path to Mars.


The first Orion crew module ground test structure stands ready for inspection after being completed at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. From here, the spacecraft goes to Lockheed Martin’s Denver facilities to be integrated with a thermal protection system heat shield and backshell before undergoing rigorous testing to verify it can withstand the harsh environments of a deep space mission. Photo: NASA
The Ball cameras are based on the design of the docking camera that flew aboard the STS-134 Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation (STORRM) mission in 2011. STORRM was an innovative technology development effort led by NASA’s Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Project Office at NASA Johnson Space Center in partnership with NASA Langley Research Center, Lockheed Martin, and Ball Aerospace. The on-orbit test validated the performance of the navigation sensor suite for Orion and other future spacecraft by demonstrating a robust relative navigation design that provided the required docking accuracy and range capability necessary to meet crew safety, mass, volume and power requirements for a wide variety of future NASA missions, including those into deep space.

The new ultra-wide-field cameras built by Ball for Orion EFT-1 have enhanced software and exposure controls, and will be positioned in various windows on the spacecraft in order to monitor the test flight as different procedures are carried out.

Variations of the Ball cameras are planned for each Orion flight. In addition to providing test and docking cameras, Ball is producing the conformal phased array antennas and star trackers that will be installed on each Orion launch system. The first human-rated Orion mission is slated for 2021.