GPS World

Tag: Orion

  • NASA’s Orion travels with Honeywell, Lockheed Martin

    NASA’s Orion travels with Honeywell, Lockheed Martin

    Honeywell, under a contract with Lockheed Martin, will supply guidance and navigation systems for NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions, which will fly humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.

    The companies are supplying key components to NASA’s Orion spacecraft fleet for the Artemis missions. Components include the barometric altimeter, the inertial measurement system, and the GPS receiver.

    Honeywell will provide 14 product types for Artemis missions III through V, including both hardware and software solutions, to support NASA’s lunar missions. NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a long-term, multibillion-dollar production contract for the Orion spacecraft, aimed to meet the space agency’s anticipated needs into the 2030s.

    Working in collaboration with the Orion team over the next decade, Honeywell will support Lockheed Martin and its partners through the development and production of essential guidance and navigation systems, command data handling, and display and control products. The focus of the missions is to conduct science and learn lessons that will help take humans to Mars.

    Honeywell will supply the following types of technology for the Artemis missions:

    First Orion Spacecraft: In this March 30 photo, Orion I is moved to the Final Assembly and Systems Test cell at Kennedy Space Center. The spacecraft returned from Ohio after a successful series of environmental tests at Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station. (Photo: NASA)
    First Orion Spacecraft: In this March 30 photo, Orion I is moved to the Final Assembly and Systems Test cell at Kennedy Space Center. The spacecraft returned from Ohio after a successful series of environmental tests at Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station. (Photo: NASA)

    • Guidance and Navigation Systems. Key navigation and guidance solutions, including the barometric altimeter, which tracks the altitude of the Orion capsule in Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the inertial measurement system (INS) and GPS receiver, which track the position and movements of the capsule.

    • Command Data Handling. Several data-handling products, including the vehicle management computer, which acts as the central computing platform supporting flight and vehicle control, as well as spacecraft communication functions.

    • Displays and Controls. Three display units and struts, seven control panels, and two hand controllers used inside the spacecraft to help astronauts in the Orion capsule monitor and control the vehicle.

    • Core Flight Software. Includes the integrated modular avionics software, a key system responsible for supporting maintenance functions sharing flight data information.

    The contract to supply key components of the Orion crew module and service module is being managed and performed out of Honeywell’s facility in Clearwater, Florida. Work is also being conducted at the company’s facilities in Glendale, Arizona, and Puerto Rico.

    Honeywell was part of NASA’s previous crewed space missions, including those that took humans to the moon.

    Featured image: Artist’s concept: NASA

  • Long-flight Orion UAS contracted by U.S. Air Force

    Aurora’s Orion ultra-long-endurance UAS.

    The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $48 million contract to Aurora Flight Sciences for the continued development of the Orion unmanned aircraft system (UAS). Aurora Flight is a Boeing company.

    Orion is a twin-engine high-performance UAS that can stay aloft over 100 hours at a time with payloads in excess of 1,000 pounds.

    Development of the Orion started in 2006 and its first flight was in August 2013. In December 2014, the Orion established the UAS world endurance record with an 80-hour, 2-minute and 52-second flight.

    The new contract funds the development of a certified version of Orion that will be suitable for deployment anywhere in the world. The work will be performed in Columbus, Mississippi, and Manassas, Virginia.

    Boeing completed the acquisition of Aurora Flight Sciences in November 2017.

  • Orion Partners with Sky-Shine

    Orion Technology Inc. has formed a partnership with Sky-Shine Corporation Sdn. Bhd., a firm specializing in GIS development and mapping services, surveying and mapping systems, and environmental and laboratory instrumentation in Malaysia.

    Sky-Shine offers a full range of geospatial information technology services, from data conversion to application development and implementation. It serves both public- and private-sector agencies, and provides services in GIS system development and implementation, digital mapping and data acquisition, data conversion, and remote sensing.

    Sky-Shine is the distributor of Digital Globe’s QuickBird high-resolution satellite imagery product and provides value-added services to the remote sensing industry in the region. In addition, Sky-Shine is also a distributor for GeoExpress from LizardTech, a geospatial software package for managing, distributing, and accessing complex geospatial imagery. As an ESRI business partner in Malaysia, Sky-Shine serves clients in various sectors including government, private, and educational institutions.

    “We are committed to exceeding customer expectations for quality and prompt delivery. Being a partner of Orion, our vision becomes more global, and more focused on system and data integration. Our ‘GeoWeb’ initiative, powered by OnPoint, will be the platform of geo services within Malaysia,” noted Zalizan Mohd Salleh, technical manager of Sky-Shine.

    By using Orion’s OnPoint Web-GIS solution, Sky-Shine will enhance its services pertaining to spatial data access and solution integration, for both their existing clients and new clients in the region. OnPoint comes with an administration tool, providing a simple user interface to create Configuration Files that define views. The user can easily change the appearance, functionality, data content, and security of OnPoint. OnPoint allows users to publish their GIS data quickly and securely over the Web and connect to any spatial and nonspatial data throughout their organization, turning their Web-GIS into a true enterprise solution.

    “OnPoint continues to gain further acceptance throughout the world as the standard for Web-GIS. Sky-Shine is a well-established firm that shares our commitment to delivering quality, leading edge solutions to clients. Sky-Shine has significant opportunities to leverage OnPoint in the Malaysian market, and we look forward to working with them in this regard,” commented Faizal Hasham, director of Sales and Marketing at Orion.