Airbus delivers ‘powerhouse’ for Nasa spacecraft that will take humans beyond the moon
- ‘This is the system that will enable humans to move sustainably into deep space … and leave the Earth-moon system for the first time ever,’ Nasa says
Europe’s Airbus on Friday delivered the “powerhouse” for Nasa’s new Orion Spaceship that will take astronauts to the moon and beyond in coming years, hitting a milestone that should lead to hundreds of millions of euros in future orders.
Engineers at the Airbus plant in Bremen, Germany on Thursday carefully packed the spacecraft into a special container that will fly on board a huge Antonov cargo plane to Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, a first step on its way to deep space.
In Florida, the module will be joined with the Orion crew module built by Lockheed Martin, followed by more than a year of intense testing before the first three-week mission orbiting the Moon is launched in 2020, albeit without people.
Future production of Orion and the European module could result in billions of dollars of new orders for the companies involved in coming years, said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and operations for Nasa.
