KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Lockheed Martin gave visitors to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex a look into a possible future home for astronauts exploring deep space.
- Module replica part of NASA contract
- 6 companies building prototypes by the end of the year
- Habitats would attach to the Deep Space Gateway
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- WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Get a tour of Lockheed Martin's habitat module
A replica of the massive habitat module was on hand at KSC Thursday.
Lockheed Martin is one of six companies building prototypes of the habitat. NASA awarded $65 million combined to Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp, Orbital ATK, NanoRacks and Bigelow Aerospace to build a prototype habitat by the end of this year.
Lockheed's prototype included places to eat and sleep, storage bins all around the module (they would be in zero-gravity, after all, so ceiling storage can be useful). It also included work stations for science experiments and a robotic simulator.
The habitat module would be part of the mission to take crews to the moon and Mars using the Orion spacecraft. The final version of this module would attach to the Deep Space Gateway, which would be a space port that orbits the moon and serve as a jump point for exploration missions.
Orion is being put together at Kennedy Space Center.