10/16/2025
The Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket have been attached at the hip for the better part of two decades. The big rocket lifts, the smaller spacecraft flies, and Congress keeps the money rolling in.
But now there are signs that the twain may, in the not too distant future, split.
This is because Lockheed Martin has begun to pivot toward a future in which the Orion spacecraft—thanks to increasing reusability, a focus on cost, and openness to flying on different rockets—fits into commercial space applications. In interviews, company officials said that if NASA wanted to buy Orion missions as a "service," rather than owning and operating the spacecraft, they were ready to work with the space agency.
"Our message is we absolutely support it, and we're starting that discussion now," said Anthony Byers, director of Strategy and Business Development for Lockheed Martin, the principal contractor for Orion.
This represents a significant change. Since the US Congress called for the creation of the Space Launch System rocket a decade and a half ago, Orion and this rocket have been discussed in tandem, forming the backbone of an expendable architecture that would launch humans to the Moon and return them to Earth inside Orion.
Through cost-plus contracts, NASA would pay for the rockets and spacecraft to be built, closely supervise all of this, and then operate the vehicles after delivery.
“We’re trying to crawl, then walk, then run into our reuse strategy.”…
