First glimpse at Lockheed Martin's 'RV to Mars' habitat being built for NASA astronauts' extended missions to the red planet and back to the moon

  • Lockheed Martin gave a first look at their living quarters prototype at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Thursday
  • The contractor's design uses the refurbished Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module
  • Donatello - which never went to space - was created during the space shuttle era to transfer cargo to the International Space Station 
  • The capsule is approximately 15 feet wide and 22 feet long
  • It will store science racks, life support systems, sleep stations, exercise machines and robotic work stations
  • The habitat will serve as an addition to the much larger mission to get crews to the moon and Mars 
  • Lockheed - along with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems, Orbital ATK, NanoRacks and Bigelow Aerospace - were all tapped by NASA 

One of the six contractors given a portion of $65million fro NASA to build a habitat prototype for deep space trekking, showed their massive cylindrical living quarters model on Thursday. 

Lockheed Martin gave a first look at their prototype at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, off the Florida coast, the Orlando Sentinel reports. 

The contractor's design uses the refurbished Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module - created during the space shuttle era to transfer cargo to the International Space Station - as their prototype. Donatello never went to space.

The capsule is approximately 15 feet wide and 22 feet long, and roughly the size of a small bus. 

Lockheed Martin gave a first look at their living quarters prototype at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Thursday

Lockheed Martin gave a first look at their living quarters prototype at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Thursday

It's a tight fit for four people but will store science racks, life support systems, sleep stations, exercise machines and robotic work stations, according to manager Bill Pratt.

'You think of it as an RV in deep space,' he said. 'When you're in an RV, your table becomes your bed and things are always moving around, so you have to be really efficient with the space. That's a lot of what we are testing here.' 

The Besthesda, Maryland, based contractors were able to save time and energy by using augmented reality headsets to visualize the capsule's layout.

The reuse of Donatello also saved Lockheed money as well in the developing. 

The contractor's design uses the refurbished Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module - created during the space shuttle era to transfer cargo to the International Space Station - as their prototype. Donatello never went to space

The contractor's design uses the refurbished Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module - created during the space shuttle era to transfer cargo to the International Space Station - as their prototype. Donatello never went to space

'We want to get to the moon and to Mars as quickly as possible, and we feel like we actually have a lot of stuff that we can use to do that,' Pratt added.

The habitat will serve as an addition to the much larger mission to get crews to the moon and Mars. 

Lockheed - along with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems, Orbital ATK, NanoRacks and Bigelow Aerospace - were all tapped by NASA to come up with a prototype by the end of the year. 

The capsule is approximately 15 feet wide and 22 feet long and will store science racks, life support systems, sleep stations, exercise machines and robotic work stations

The capsule is approximately 15 feet wide and 22 feet long and will store science racks, life support systems, sleep stations, exercise machines and robotic work stations

Lockheed - along with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems, Orbital ATK, NanoRacks and Bigelow Aerospace - were all tapped by NASA to come up with a prototype by the end of the year

Lockheed - along with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems, Orbital ATK, NanoRacks and Bigelow Aerospace - were all tapped by NASA to come up with a prototype by the end of the year

From there, NASA will look over the proposals and devide which should be attached to the Deep Space Gateway. The Gateway is a space port that will orbit the moon and work as a jump off for other deep space missions.

The crew members would launch on the Orion spacecraft, which NASA as deemed the 'most powerful rocket' it's ever built. 

The Gateway space port is just 75 tons, which is considerably smaller than the 450-ton International Space Sation, and will house the habitat, an airlock, a propulsion module, a docking port and a power bus.

From there, NASA will look over the proposals and devide which should be attached to the Deep Space Gateway space port

From there, NASA will look over the proposals and devide which should be attached to the Deep Space Gateway space port

Lockheed hopes to deliver their European Service Module that will sit below the crew module in September, according to Mike Hawes, vice president and program manager for Orion at Lockheed Martin

Lockheed hopes to deliver their European Service Module that will sit below the crew module in September, according to Mike Hawes, vice president and program manager for Orion at Lockheed Martin

Orion is expected to make an uncrewed mission to orbit the moon in 2020, when it is done with production. Mission-2 will take a crew into lunar orbit by mid-2022.

Orion has been in development since 2004 and is not allowed to have any weld defects, whereas the Apollo mission allowed for a number of defects per inch. 

The zero defects rule exist sense the spacecraft will have to make the grueling 1,000-day trip to Mars. 

'This is the infrastructure for sustained human space exploration and so you have to account for every scenario that could come up, that's why the requirements are so stringent,' said Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's commercial civil space division. 

Lockheed hopes to deliver their European Service Module that will sit below the crew module in September, according to Mike Hawes, vice president and program manager for Orion at Lockheed Martin.