In February 2004, President Bush announced a new initiative for United States space exploration. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) developed the architecture for accomplishing exploration objectives to implement this initiative. The Constellation Program is responsible for the development and operation of the human space exploration infrastructure at the heart of the ESMD Architecture.Within the Constellation Program, the Orion Project is charged with the development and production of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), to provide crew habitation during launch, transport, and landing/recovery operations. The NASA Orion Project leadership is located at NASA's Johnson Space Center with key participation from eight other NASA centers and prime contractor Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. The Orion Project is on the path to Preliminary Design Review (PDR), refining requirements and design solutions, and resolving issues such as mass control, landing scenarios, and environments. Accomplishing this mission with Initial Operating Capability (IOC) no later than 2015 (to minimize the US crew access to space gap following the Space Shuttle's retirement), technology maturation and minimizing operations costs through streamlining manufacturing and ground operations are primary endeavors of the Orion team. A robust and integrated analysis, design and evolutionary series of ground and flight tests are planned to reduce risk and focus efforts to meet the aggressive development schedule.
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