page_title: John P. Healey
section_title: Constellation program
hierarchical_section_title: John P. Healey / Constellation program
context_page_description: John P. Healey was an American aerospace executive manager best known for his role in the redesign and manufacture of the command modules for the Apollo program after the catastrophic launch pad fire that took the lives of Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee on January 27, 1967. He died in March 2019 at the age of 97.
context_section_description: Healey, coming out of retirement, joined the Lockheed Martin Orion team in 2008.  
  The Orion spacecraft designs are based substantially on the Apollo command and service module (Apollo CSM) flown between 1967 and 1975, but include advances derived from other technology programs, including; control systems from the Boeing 787, "autodock" features from Russian/European spacecraft, waste-management systems based on Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station, and the most advanced computers ever put into a spacecraft. "Going with known technology and known solutions lowers the risk," according to Neil Woodward, director of the integration office in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
  The goals of Orion include:
  ... to bring to bear the nation's premier human space flight and exploration expertise in the development of NASA's next generation crew transportation system
  ... to span five decades in large-scale systems integration, planetary exploration, human space flight systems and operations, launch vehicles, military aircraft, and autonomous flight systems
  ... to provide a critical foundation for NASA's vision for space exploration to design, develop and successfully return the only deep space capsule missions since the Apollo era
  It was an element of NASA's Project Constellation, which was planned to send human explorers back to the Moon by 2020, and then onward to Mars and other destinations in the Solar System.
caption: Orion CM docked with LSAM in orbit
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