At NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, engineers are welding together the Orion crew module pathfinder in preparation for the welding process set to begin later this summer on the Orion spacecraft for Exploration Mission-1. This pathfinder, including the barrel section shown here, is a full-scale version of the current spacecraft design.
At NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, engineers are welding together the Orion crew module pathfinder in preparation for the welding process set to begin later this summer on the Orion spacecraft for Exploration Mission-1. This pathfinder, including the barrel section shown here, is a full-scale version of the current spacecraft design. It is used to demonstrate the manufacturing and assembly procedures that will be used to produce flight hardware for Orion’s next mission, when the spacecraft will fly atop the agency’s Space Launch System rocket. Several pieces of Orion’s primary structure for that mission have already arrived at Michoud for processing.
Image Credit: NASA