Refurbrished Orion

[fredinno]

I know Orion reusability isn't something that sould be hugely strived for, but would it be worth it, and reduce costs to refurbrish Orion capsules in the O&C building?

My propsal would use the splashed-down Orion Capsules about 5-10 times before being replaced, with a nominal supply of 4 capsules. The lower launch rate might mean new facilities would not have to be built. The EFT-1 capsule is already going to be refurbrished for Launch Abort Tests, and similar proposals were made for Apollo.

[Sampa]

The biggest problem with that is how salt water will affect the capsule's metallic properties. Once metal has been submerged in salt water and then removed, it has a far higher chance to corrode. Add that to the fact that it had just undergone atmospheric reentry AND a relatively hard splash down. the very frame of the thing will be put into question.

[Bill Phil]

It depends on the cost of refurbishment and the benefit. That and the cost to just build another.

[sgt_flyer]

Among the stresses the frame would have been submitted, you'll also have all the vibrations from the launch itself - so between all these stresses, (launch, reentry, splashdown, corrosion) the frame might not be reusable as it. You maybe can recycle the materials, but studying how those materials handled that is as much valuable to help design a more robust and/or more lightweight version

The electronics on board might be much easier to reuse though

[Kryten]

Orion is designed and intended for refurbishment and reuse.

[Bill Phil]

Orion is designed and intended for refurbishment and reuse.

So was the Orbiter... That didn't turn out so well.

But that was the 70s...

[PB666]

So was the Orbiter... That didn't turn out so well.

huh? hows that?

[Bill Phil]

huh? hows that?

The original intent was for it to be refurbished rather inexpensively and quickly. But it took thousands of man-hours in the end.

[fredinno]

Among the stresses the frame would have been submitted, you'll also have all the vibrations from the launch itself - so between all these stresses, (launch, reentry, splashdown, corrosion) the frame might not be reusable as it. You maybe can recycle the materials, but studying how those materials handled that is as much valuable to help design a more robust and/or more lightweight version

The electronics on board might be much easier to reuse though

Well, EFT-1 is a partially-complete Orion CM, and the results from refurbishing that from its flight will give NASA more information on how to mitigate a lot of that.

NASA also has experience refurbrishing Cre Capsules, a la Shuttle. Orion needs to deal with salt water, deep space, and a somewhat longer mission length (assuming a 15-day lunar landing mission, with 15 days on the moon). I think it's feasable. Economical, maybe.

- - - Updated - - -

The original intent was for it to be refurbished rather inexpensively and quickly. But it took thousands of man-hours in the end.

Dragon is supposed to be refurbrished and reused too, along with CST-100. Maybe they can come together and share information to make it easier to reuse each's capsules? Not to mention NASA might be able to practice mitigating the corrosion problem with the recovered Dragon V1s.

Also, the Orion only needs to be able to turn over once ever year or two, which was feasable for the Shuttle. The Shuttle was also a lot larger, so there was a lot more to refurbrish.

- - - Updated - - -

The biggest problem with that is how salt water will affect the capsule's metallic properties. Once metal has been submerged in salt water and then removed, it has a far higher chance to corrode. Add that to the fact that it had just undergone atmospheric reentry AND a relatively hard splash down. the very frame of the thing will be put into question.

Doesn't NASA have experience dealing with corrosion from the Shuttle SRB recovery?

[Bill Phil]

Well, EFT-1 is a partially-complete Orion CM, and the results from refurbishing that from its flight will give NASA more information on how to mitigate a lot of that.

NASA also has experience refurbrishing Cre Capsules, a la Shuttle. Orion needs to deal with salt water, deep space, and a somewhat longer mission length (assuming a 15-day lunar landing mission, with 15 days on the moon). I think it's feasable. Economical, maybe.

- - - Updated - - -

Dragon is supposed to be refurbrished and reused too, along with CST-100. Maybe they can come together and share information to make it easier to reuse each's capsules? Not to mention NASA might be able to practice mitigating the corrosion problem with the recovered Dragon V1s.

Also, the Oroon only needs to be able to turn over once ever year or two, which was feasable for the Shuttle. The Shuttle was also a lot larger, so there was a lot more to refurbrish.

Yeah. We also have modern technology, which could help out.

[Nibb31]

Orion is designed to only fly on SLS. The SLS program is scaled to only fly every two years. They might increase it to once a year, but there will also be unmanned flights, so optimistically, the best you can hope for is one Orion flight every two years. With a fleet of 4 Orions, each one flies every 8 years. If you reuse them 5 times, that means that each spacecraft lasts 40 years. In that time, you're going to be fighting obsolescence and stripping it down for inspections and upgrading it on a regular basis, so you really might as well build a new one for each flight.

Reusability simply doesn't make sense for such a low flight rate, and that flight rate isn't going up unless NASA redesigns the whole exploration architecture.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Nibb31