Fresh from its 25-day successful mission around the moon, the Orion spacecraft’s maiden voyage apparently went off without a hitch. In addition to systems tests, the mission was also supposed to prove the vehicle’s heat shield technology. In this short video, www.space.com offers a short tour of the inside of Orion. Although its outward appearance is similar to Apollo vehicles, its volume is 50 percent larger.
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It’s funny how the reporter in a video like this can miss some fundamental questions. My question was: how many seats are in Orion? The Apollo capsule famously had exactly three. It looks like the Orion mockup in this video had five, maybe six. Apparently Orion can be rigged from between two to six crew, according to a 2014-vintage Scientific American article.
You are correct Jim. The video described much but I remained curious so I searched for more…
“Orion (officially Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA’s Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space. Capable of supporting a crew of six beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.” Wikipedia