spacetoday.net: NASA delays first crewed Orion flight

Posted: Tue, Aug 12, 2008, 9:58 AM ET (1358 GMT)
Orion spacecraft illustration (Lockheed Martin)

NASA announced Monday that it was delaying its internal schedule for the first crewed flight of the Orion crew exploration vehicle by a year because of technical and financial pressures. While the official date for the first crewed Orion launch has been March 2015, NASA had been working to try to fly the vehicle as soon as September 2013. On Monday, though, officials said they had shifted that internal target back by a year, to September 2014, based on a reevaluation of the effort needed to complete development of the spacecraft and its Ares 1 launcher, as well as expected funding. The decision makes it unlike that the schedule can be accelerated to close the gape between the shuttle and Orion. NASA officials also said Monday that engineers have come up with a solution for the thrust oscillation issue with the Ares 1, by adding springs to the base of the first stage that are designed to cancel out the rocket's oscillations.