The ESA will work with NASA on the Orion manned mission: NASA and ESA have announced details of their cooperation in manned space flight program Orion, the U.S. space agency wants to accomplish in 2017.As reported, at a press conference, the Orion spacecraft will have a similar service module storage for vehicles manufactured by the ESA ATV, which will provide power to the propulsion and spacecraft, as well as a load of oxygen, water and other elements of life support to keep astronauts.
The ESA has indicated that the module is a cylinder 2.7 meters long and 4.5 meters in diameter, similar to an ATV, but half as long. In addition, the mission of the ESA in this mission includes improving the configuration of solar panels containing ATV freighters.
The European agency has indicated that the panel will be a little shorter but wider and use gallium arsenide technology to power up to 11 kW, enough to meet the basic needs of a mission like this. The ESA has explained that these solar panels offer a 30 percent efficiency of solar energy conversion, relative to the current solar panels ATV, they get 17%.
Furthermore, to push up through the space Orion, NASA this module will provide an additional motor services, to be recycled to another launcher. This mission was canceled by Obama in 2010 for lack of funds and resumed a year later, so NASA decided to do a mission as 'low cost' possible.
The U.S. space agency has said it wants to make a first unmanned test flight in 2017 with this ship, which means that ESA will have to deliver the module in 2016. "This is a short term, but the people behind ATV have become accustomed to the delivery of a new ship in less than 20 months," stated the director of the European Space Agency, Jean Jacques Dordain.
After the test flight, ATV and Orion will head to the moon and then are expected to be the vehicle for man to reach an asteroid step.
Experts have noted that the ESA shall pay to the United States 450 million euros for the use of the International Space Station (ISS) during the period from 2017 to 2020, but this amount is not necessary to pay it in cash and, in fact, NASA have requested assistance from the ESA in this mission to change the lease on the space module.
