Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the crew module, which was originally conceived to be used in the now-cancelled Constellation programme. The module is made from aluminium-lithium alloy, which is both lightweight and incredibly strong.

The pressure vessel is built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana and final assembly takes place at the Kennedy Space Center. This is designed to support a crew of four for up to 21 days.

Many components from the Artemis I Orion spacecraft were reused, including nine avionics units and one seat. More than 150 parts of the craft have been 3D printed, an increase from the four that were part of its first test flight in 2014.

Augmented reality was used during Orion’ s assembly to help reduce engineer training time and reduce some manufacturing tasks from eight hours to just 45 minutes.

CREDIT: LOCKHEED MARTIN

FOUNDED: 1995 HEADQUARTERS: MARYLAND, US NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 123,000

manufacturingdigital. com 87