Aerojet Rocketdyne says it’s received a $67 million contract award from Lockheed Martin to provide propulsion systems for the Orion spacecraft that’ll carry astronauts to the moon during three missions planned for the 2030s.
The contract option for NASA’s Artemis 6, 7 and 8 missions follows up on Aerojet’s work on earlier missions in the Artemis program — including the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission that flew around the moon last year, and the history-making Artemis 3 mission that’s due to put a crew on the lunar surface in the mid-2020s.
“We’re proud to be part of a team that has demonstrated the ability to safely and efficiently carry astronauts on future Artemis missions, effectively ushering in an exciting new generation of human spaceflight,” Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake said today in a news release.
Aerojet says the contract will be managed and performed out of the company’s facility in Redmond, Wash. Work will also be conducted at Aerojet facilities in Alabama and Virginia.
The contract covers delivery of three additional sets of eight auxiliary engines for Orion’s service module, plus three jettison motors that help Orion’s Launch Abort System separate from the crew module.
Each of the auxiliary engines produces 105 pounds of thrust to help Orion maintain its in-space trajectory and supplement the spacecraft’s main engine. The jettison motors pack a bigger punch: 40,000 pounds of thrust.
Aerojet Rocketdyne has been working for years with Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the Orion capsule, to provide propulsion components for Artemis missions. A separate contract that was awarded in 2021 calls for Aerojet to provide new main engines for future Orion spacecraft. Aerojet’s Redmond operation also builds the reaction control thrusters for the Orion crew module and for the upper stage of NASA’s Space Launch System, the rocket that sends Orion into space.
The 2030s may sound like a long time from now, but it takes several years to produce and integrate Orion’s components. When Artemis 1 was launched last November, engineers in Redmond were already assembling components for Artemis 5, currently due for liftoff in 2029.
