An attitude control motor for a system to enable astronauts to escape the Orion spacecraft in an emergency during launch is being built by Orbital ATK Inc.

The motor will provide steering control to the Lunch Abort System through the use of a solid propellant gas generator with eight valves around its 3-foot diameter to steer Orion as it moves away from the launch vehicle.

The motor can exert up to 7,000 pounds of steering force in any direction, the company said.

The ACM contract, which is worth $90 million, was issued by Lockheed Martin, the builder of the Orion command module for NASA.

"Orbital ATK is honored to be a major contributor to the Orion team, and our Elkton (Md.) team is very proud of their contributions to the Launch Abort System," said Cary Ralston, vice president and general manager of Orbital ATK's Missile Products division of the Defense Systems Group. "Orion represents the future of manned spaceflight, and will take humans deeper into space than ever before. Working with Lockheed Martin and NASA, Orbital ATK is committed to making spaceflight safer than ever before for our astronauts."

Orbital ATK, which already provides the primary launch abort motor and initial system design and engineering, said it has performed a number of ground tests on the ACM, "provided a working unit for the successful pad abort test in 2010, and supplied the inert unit which flew as part of Orion's first test flight, Exploration Flight Test-1 in December 2014."

Orion is being designed to carry as many as four astronauts into deep space and then returning them to Earth beginning in 2021.