Orion EFT-1

Orion EFT-1 [NASA]

Project Constellation's Orion (formerly CEV - Crewed Exploration Vehicle) will be a manned Spacecraft for low earth orbit missions to ISS, missions to the moon and eventually to Mars.

CEV will be a capsule design, which inherits its shape from the Apollo capsule, but will otherwise a completely new construction.

In February 2010, the development of the Ares-1 launch vehicle was cancelled and the development of Orion was reduced to a lifeboat for the ISS. After the Constellation was cancelled, the Orion capsule was renamed Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV).

In 2011 an unmanned test flight of a reduced Orion capsule without solar arrays and main engine launched by a Delta-4H (upg.) rocket in the latter part of 2013 or early 2014 was approved. The capsule and the dummy service module will remain connected with the upper stage until the capsule is separated for reentry.

The launch vehicle will launch Orion EFT-1 to an elliptical orbit with an apogee of about 8000 km. In this orbit, the stack will orbit the earth twice, then the capsule will separate for a skipping reentry and a landing off the coast of Baja California.