A frame containing a United States flag and mission pins and patches that were flown on the Orion Exploration Flight Test (EFT)-1 was recently gifted from Lockheed Martin to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
The presentation, held at the complex’s Journey to Mars exhibit, was attended by park guests and staff from
Delaware North, which operates the visitor complex for NASA. The framed items were accepted by Therrin Protze (chief operating officer at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex), with Joe Mayer, Paul Cooper, Jules Schneider and Scott Norris on-hand for Lockheed Martin — the aerospace company that serves as the prime contractor on the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle.
“It is with deep gratitude from the employees of Lockheed Martin that we present this to you,” said Norris, a senior manager of business development with Lockheed Martin. “Let this location be known as mile marker zero on our journey to Mars.”
Following the presentation, Schneider and Mayer showed an Orion video and gave a program update to guests.
Orion EFT-1 was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 5, 2014, with crewed missions possibly following in the 2020s. With Orion, NASA hopes to send a crew to a captured asteroid in lunar orbit around 2025, and progress to Mars orbit in the mid-2030s.
PHOTO CAPTION: On behalf of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Therrin Protze (far right) accepts a gift from Lockheed Martin. Also pictured are Jules Schneider (left), Paul Cooper (second from left) and Scott Norris (second from right).