The agency promised NASA that Orion components will arrive on time

Jan 18, 2014 11:19 GMT  ·  By

Officials from the European Space Agency, led by ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain, said during a press briefing held in Paris on January 17 that the latest delays the agency has suffered in delivering an important component of the NASA Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle on time will not impact the American space agency's plans to test the new spacecraft in 2017.

An unmanned test launch of the Orion capsule is scheduled to occur sometime in mid-to-late 2017, aboard the newly-developed NASA Space Launch System (SLS). The MPCV is being developed to reach locations in low-Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and the Inner Asteroid Belt.

ESA is in charge of building the service module for the American spacecraft, but recently the agency's contractors have suffered a series of delays in finishing the required components on time. European officials plan to aid one of these companies financially in order to speed things up.

At the conference, Dordain gave assurances that this financial aid will in no way hamper competition in this field. He added that the critically-important Preliminary Design Review for the service module will begin no later than April 1, and conclude by mid-May. This timetable is nearly a year behind schedule.

It is not at all uncommon for such delays to appear when developing a spacecraft, satellite or space telescope. A number of successful NASA and ESA missions have gone behind schedule before launch.

One of the reasons for the delay is the large number of technical issues that arose from the service module's initial design, which was modeled after the Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV) ESA is using to resupply the International Space Station. This design is several hundred kilograms heavier than it should be.

“I have committed to NASA that the PDR will not cause a delay in the delivery of the service module,” the ESA Director-General said. The new timeline also calls for NASA and ESA to create an integrated calendar for developing the Orion spacecraft in June 2014.

Dordain also covered the recent topic of ESA providing technical assistance to Sierra Nevada Corporation, one of the companies working under NASA contracts to develop spacecraft capable of resupplying the ISS. The company is developing the Dream Chaser shuttle-like space plane.

The top ESA official assured NASA that it will provide the same type of assistance to companies such as Boeing or SpaceX , should they require it. Both of these companies are involved in the same type of contracts with NASA as SNC is, Space News reports.