NASA's Orion spacecraft continues on the agency's journey to Mars as engineers analyze data from the spacecraft's December flight test and make progress developing and building the spacecraft for its first mission atop NASA Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket. On future missions, Orion will send astronauts to an asteroid and onward toward the Red Planet.

At machine houses across the country, elements of the primary structure for the next Orion to fly in space are coming together. Avionics components are being built and simulators for the ESA (European Space Agency)-built service module that will house the spacecraft's propulsion and solar arrays are being delivered. By the end of the year, engineers hope to have the primary structure for Orion's next mission to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for processing.

Meanwhile, every piece of data and each element of the spacecraft flown in the December test is being analyzed and compared to pre-flight models to improve Orion's design.

"Orion's flight test was a big success and what we learned is informing how we design, develop and build future Orions that will help us pioneer deep space destinations," said Mark Geyer, NASA's Orion Program manager.

"Taking a look at all the flight test data is a huge part of the development process and a key part off in why we flew a test flight. We have critical work happening this year, both on the data analysis and development side, to keep us moving toward our first mission with SLS."

Engineers and technicians at Kennedy, where Orion was assembled and returned after its flight test, recently took off the back shell and heat shield that protected Orion during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere, to unload unused propellants and allow for a close-up analysis of the spacecraft's systems.

One of the main objectives of Orion's flight, which sent the vehicle 3,600 miles into space during a two-orbit, 4.5-hour test, was to test how the spacecraft would fare returning to Earth at high speeds and temperatures.

"The heat shield looks in great shape," said Michael Hawes, Orion Program manager for Lockheed Martin, NASA's prime contractor for the spacecraft.

"The char on the shield is consistent. If you look at it now, you'd see a few big holes because we've taken core samples. We've also done a total laser scan of the surface of the heat shield. That'll give us a very detailed engineering base of knowledge of what the heat shield did."

In March, the heat shield will be shipped to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where the ablative material on the heat shield will be taken off.

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Orion test flight yields critical data for next mission