Washington, Dec 19 (IANS): NASA has decided to fly their Orion spacecraft designed to transport humans to deep space without repairing a failed power unit component.
During their difficulties, engineers evaluated the option of “using as is” with the high level of rework available or removing and replacing the box, NASA said. Friday.
As a spacecraft designed to transport humans to deep space, Orion is built with much more spacecraft to protect against the failures of the robotic spacecraft, the U.S. space agency said.
Engineers identified an issue with a redundant channel on one of the Orion Spacecraft’s (PDU) Power and Data Unit communication cards during the spacecraft’s final assembly at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Orion has a total of eight PDUs, each with two cards with two redundant channels on each card that will help provide communication between Orion’s flying computers to its parts.
The PDU is still fully operational and will use its main channel during the mission of Artemis I, which is an unmanned test flight.
During their difficulties, the engineers concluded that due to the accessibility of this particular box, the degree of interference with the spacecraft systems was total, and other factors, the risk of damage to co. -timic outweighs the risk associated with the loss of one leg of redundancy in an unnecessary system.
Therefore, NASA has decided to go ahead with vehicle processing.
NASA said they trust the health of the entire power and data system, which has gone through thousands of hours of power and test activity.
Engineers will perform additional tests and monitor the health of the spacecraft while Orion is powered to provide continuous confidence to the system.
NASA said it is still on track for the scheduled launch of Orion in November 2021.