NASA is working on a new deep space vehicle that will take astronauts farther into space than ever before — first to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.
The spaceship is called the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and is based on the design of Orion spacecraft, created for the Constellation program.
The goal of that program, which was cancelled by President Obama in 2010, was to send astronauts to the International Space Station, the moon, Mars and other destinations. Following the cancellation of the Constellation program, president Obama set a new goal for NASA: to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, followed by a mission to Mars by the 2030s. To be able to achieve that, NASA aims to modify the Orion design, which is considerably cheaper than working on an entirely new spaceship.
“We are committed to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and look forward to developing the next generation of systems to take us there,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.
The MPCV will be built by Lockheed Martin; the company was also working on the development of the Orion capsule.
The vehicle will have 316 cubic feet of habitable space, designed to carry four astronauts for 21-day missions.
According to NASA officials, the new spaceship is designed to be 10 times safer during launch, re-entry and landing than the space shuttle.
Author : Stan Schroeder
