1) Orion will never take astronauts to the moon
2) Orion’s main purpose (like SLS) is to employ people in Alabama and other states with powerful senators.
So the lack of a storage space for Moon rocks is inconsequential.
There was a set of requirements for stowage and return of samples in the Orion requirements for Lunar missions. I think the article is wrong.
Wasn’t there some iterations where the Orion would retrieve rocks from an asteroid and take them over to the Lunar Gateway, where they would be analyzed? Sure, for that mission they could probably attach the samples to the outside of Orion with double-sided tape and just barely use their thrusters, but I would think they had some plan involving at least having rocks in Hefty sample bags floating around the cockpit.
My guess is that they concluded that a dedicated space isn’t needed since the samples will have been bagged, bottled, and sealed out on the lunar surface, and can be stowed in nooks and crannies just like all the other trash and experiment samples that an ISS crew returns with.
The Apollo lunar sample return containers (They used two on early missions, but I don’t know on latter ones) were about 19 inches by 12 inches by 8 inches, and maintained a vacuum seal.
If Orion has nowhere it could manage to store something similar, it’s an incomprehensible design choice, because Orion is larger than the Apollo CM. They could just strap the things down in just about any storage area (perhaps the by-then-half-empty food storage?)
My bet is there’s been a mistake or misinterpretation, because there is absolutely no viable reason to omit this, so much as that I can’t imagine even the bungled Orion/SLS program being capable of this lever of incompetence.
“Has no ability to bring back moon rocks?”
The Ars article doesn’t say that. It says that Orion’s capability for returning samples is unknown. That’s a huge issue but not the same as having no ability.
1) Orion will never take astronauts to the moon
2) Orion’s main purpose (like SLS) is to employ people in Alabama and other states with powerful senators.
So the lack of a storage space for Moon rocks is inconsequential.
There was a set of requirements for stowage and return of samples in the Orion requirements for Lunar missions. I think the article is wrong.
Wasn’t there some iterations where the Orion would retrieve rocks from an asteroid and take them over to the Lunar Gateway, where they would be analyzed? Sure, for that mission they could probably attach the samples to the outside of Orion with double-sided tape and just barely use their thrusters, but I would think they had some plan involving at least having rocks in Hefty sample bags floating around the cockpit.
My guess is that they concluded that a dedicated space isn’t needed since the samples will have been bagged, bottled, and sealed out on the lunar surface, and can be stowed in nooks and crannies just like all the other trash and experiment samples that an ISS crew returns with.
The Apollo lunar sample return containers (They used two on early missions, but I don’t know on latter ones) were about 19 inches by 12 inches by 8 inches, and maintained a vacuum seal.
If Orion has nowhere it could manage to store something similar, it’s an incomprehensible design choice, because Orion is larger than the Apollo CM. They could just strap the things down in just about any storage area (perhaps the by-then-half-empty food storage?)
My bet is there’s been a mistake or misinterpretation, because there is absolutely no viable reason to omit this, so much as that I can’t imagine even the bungled Orion/SLS program being capable of this lever of incompetence.
“Has no ability to bring back moon rocks?”
The Ars article doesn’t say that. It says that Orion’s capability for returning samples is unknown. That’s a huge issue but not the same as having no ability.