Houston Chronicle by Alex Stuckey Oct. 10, 2018
The long-waited launch of Orion — the spacecraft built by NASA to take Americans back to the moon — likely won't be ready for the planned mid-2020 lift-off as planned because of cost and scheduling problems with the rocket that will send it into orbit.
The delay, announced Wednesday in a report from NASA's Office of Inspector General, is the second setback this week for the space agency, which reported Monday that the Hubble Space Telescope had been temporarily shut down because of a mechanical failure that crippled its directional system.
If NASA wants Orion to launch by June 2020 as planned, the agency would need to spend an additional $1.2 billion, the OIG report found. It did not provide a new launch date for the Space Launch System rocket, which has already been delayed multiple times.
"We have concluded NASA will be unable to meet its (Exploration Mission-1) launch window currently scheduled between December 2019 and June 2020," according to the OIG report.
NASA, however, remained optimistic that the Orion launch will go off as planned.
"NASA has made significant progress on SLS, including core stage production, and the agency continues to plan for the launch of Exploration Mission-1 in 2020, but there are still technical and schedule risks," said Kathryn Hambleton, NASA spokeswoman.
The first Orion spacecraft mission, Exploration Mission-1, is meant to go up without a crew on board. The second, Exploration Mission-2, will launch humans around the moon and is supposed to fly by no later than 2023.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/nation-world/space/article/NASA-s-Orion-launch-faces-further-delays-as-new-13295916.php
