Orion (spacecraft) replaces Crew Exploration Vehicle
History
The Orion MPCV was announced by NASA on May 24, 2011. Its design is based on the Crew Exploration Vehicle from the canceled Constellation program, which had been a 2006 NASA contract award to Lockheed Martin. The command module is being built by Lockheed Martin at the Michoud Assembly Facility, while the Orion service module is being built by Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen with funding from the European Space Agency. The MPCV's first uncrewed test flight (EFT-1) was launched atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket on December 5, 2014, and lasted 4 hours and 24 minutes before landing at its target in the Pacific Ocean.On November 30, 2020, it was reported that NASA and Lockheed Martin had found a failure with a component in one of the Orion spacecraft's power data units but NASA later clarified that it does not expect the issue to affect the Artemis 1 launch date.