Boeing has announced their Industry Team for the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle Upper Stage Production bid. Orion Propulsion has been revealed as a team member and will supply reaction control system thruster test equipment, tooling, and test support services. Orion will also provide design, fabrication, and testing expertise. In addition, Orion will be working with Boeing’s mentor-protégé program in order to grow as a supplier to both Boeing and NASA.
Orion’s President, Tim Pickens, says, “We are very excited to be part of the Boeing Ares I Team. I think Boeing has chosen team members that are technically savvy and committed to lean manufacturing. As the president of a small business, I appreciate Boeing’s commitment to using innovative and affordable businesses that are eager to meet NASA’s needs in a responsive manner. I think Boeing will lead a team of suppliers that provides the best lean production solution and the most cost-effective strategy to support NASA’s CLV goals.”
Featured in the December 11th, 2006 edition of Aviation Week. Orion Propulsion designed, fabricated, and supported testing on the vertical test stand for AirLaunch as part of the DARPA FALCON program.
Orion Propulsion has just been awarded a
NASA SBIR Phase 2 for our Oxygen-Methane RCS Thruster. Tim Pickens says, “We are extremely excited about this award! As part of this program, we will be expanding on the design of our innovative igniter/injector, which will provide simple and reliable ignition. Also, this thruster will have the ability to operate with both liquid and gaseous propellants. This system flexibility will provide a much greater range of operating conditions for propellants that are stored at different saturated conditions. The high temperature Rhenium/Iridium combustion chamber design will lend itself for use im several other thruster programs that are ongoing. One such storable green propellant combination that we have been testing is nitrous oxide/ethane.”
Orion Propulsion was awarded a contract with the X-Prize Foundation to demonstrate several hybrid engines at this year’s X-Prize Cup. In addition, the Orion team volunteered their time at night to create the rocket truck – a Chevy pickup truck equipped with a 3,000 lbf-thrust Nitrous Oxide/Asphalt hybrid engine. This truck will be statically tested at the X-Prize Cup, and Orion Propulsion and Miltec are supporting this effort as sponsors.
The truck will serve as an educational demonstrator showing the same rocket propulsion technology used by SpaceShipOne. We hope the rocket truck will make rockets fun for kids, and encourage them to pursue careers in science and engineering.
Orion Propulsion successfully completed the design, manufacturing, and testing of a hydrogen/oxygen thruster as part of a NASA contract. The thruster was mounted to the NASA provided gimbal joint. Orion successfully fired the thruster more than 50 cycles during the test program. “This system is truly out of the box. NASA’s idea of a gimbaled joint with integral propellant feed lines is innovative and very functional. There are no propellant feed line torques or moments to speak of, no flexures or problem joints that are typical of a gimbaled system.” Tim Pickens says.
Orion demonstrates pulse mode of nitrous ethane thruster in vacuum.
Orion completes vacuum testing of methane thruster
Orion designed, fabricated, and delivered, and operated this spray-cooled eductor (high altitude simulator) system and test stand for 20k rocket motor testing.
See larger photo
