Assembly begins on first flight version of Orion service module

The primary structure for the European Service Module (ESM) – the framework onto which all of the module’s functional components will be attached – is now at the Bremen site, and the integration process (the term used for the installation of these components) is beginning, with the first phase being the attachment of 'a very large number of brackets,' said Bart Reijnen, who leads the Airbus team on the module; the ESM will then be transferred to Bremen's cleanroom for the installation of propulsion systems, tanks for fuel, air and water and the systems to interface with the guidance, avionics and other computers in the crew module.

The ESM is scheduled to be competed by January 2017, and it will be shipped to the Kennedy Centre at Cape Canaverel in Florida soon after, where it will be attached to the crew module built by Lockheed Martin. Further testing will be carried out on the whole spacecraft before its scheduled launch on the first mission, EM-1, which will see the module, uncrewed, sent on a flight around the Moon and back. Designed to shake down all the systems that would be needed on a crewed Lunar mission, EM-1 will take Orion further from Earth than any crew-rated spacecraft has ever been, breaking Apollo-13’s record.