NASA, Lockheed Martin Announce Exploration Design Challenge for Students

NASA has the first flight of the Orion spacecraft scheduled to take place in the latter half of 2014. More and more elements needed to conduct this mission have been assembled and are being readied for the inaugural flight for the first flight of NASA's new spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA
NASA has the first flight of the Orion spacecraft scheduled to take place in the latter half of 2014. More and more elements needed to conduct this mission have been assembled and are being readied for the inaugural flight of NASA’s new spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA

NASA and Lockheed Martin Corp., of Bethesda, Md., will unveil the Exploration Design Challenge, Monday, 11 March, to involve students in the flight testing of the next-generation Orion spacecraft.

Former shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin—who flew aboard STS-122 in February 2008 and STS-129 in November 2009 and presently serves as NASA’s Associate Administrator for Education—will announce the details of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) challenge at 11:30 a.m. EDT (10:30 a.m. CDT) in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Speakers at the event are expected to include NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin, Orion’s prime contractor.

After the Exploration Design Challenge kickoff at 12:30 p.m. EDT (11:30 a.m. CDT), NASA plans to host a Google+ hangout with Melvin and fellow astronaut Rex Walheim, who will be inside a mockup of the Orion spacecraft, discussing its capabilities and answering questions about the future of exploration. Individuals interested in joining the Google+ hangout have been invited to visit: http://go.nasa.gov/12u0RwZ.

3 Comments

  1. Karol: You have quite eloquently listed the reasons why we need such programs. It is money well spent and will pay tremendous benefits in the future. Like I always say, it’s “chump change” to do so.

  2. I have a new design for another proto type of the lockheed martin,s supersonis green machine as our planet earth has a large asteriod impact to earth by the year 2026 gives us not enough time to build the supersonic green machine but if the spaceship was build day and night it would shorten the time to have the spaceliner to be built quickly. time is all we have left.

    Another disaster to happen to planet earth is a broken heatshield outside the united kingdom that will cause a world storm.The united kingdom has adverse weather patterns that will cause a world hurricane

  3. I have a new design for another proto type of the lockheed martin,s supersonic green machine as our planet earth has a large asteriod impact to the earth by the year 2026 gives us not enough time to build the supersonic green machine by 2035 but if the spaceship was build day and night it would shorten the time to have the spaceliner to be build quickly by the year 2023 time is all we have left.

    Another disaster to happen to planet earth has a broken heatshield at the earth heatshield outside the United Kingdom with circler gale force to storm force winds to develope with winter weather recorded with adverse weather patterns with cyclone and cyclonic hurricane weather reports recorded.The United kIngdom is in the vortex of a world storm hurricane to develope years to come in the United Kingdom the deadline for hurricane world storm destruction is the year 2026 time is all we have left to build the supersonic green machine to another earth planet like this one but thousands of the supersonic spaceships of the green machine would have to be build to save as many children as posssible. SOS.. Northern Ireland.

What Will We Find At Pluto?

In the Shadow of Challenger: The Lost Mission of STS-61E (Part 1)