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Airbus wins contract for U.S. space capsule Orion

The logo of Airbus Group is seen on the company's headquarters building in Toulouse, February 25, 2014 on the eve of its 2013 annual results presentation. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

BERLIN (Reuters) - Airbus Group will develop and build a service module for the future American human space capsule, Orion, marking the first time a European firm will provide system-critical elements for a U.S. space project, it said on Monday. Europe's largest aerospace group said the contract, signed with the European Space Agency, was worth around 390 million euros (312 million pounds). The contract comes days after European scientists celebrated landing a probe on the surface of a comet for the first time. NASA intends to use Orion to fly astronauts to an asteroid that has been robotically relocated into a high orbit around the moon. Eventually, the U.S. space agency wants to fly a four-member crew to Mars. The design of the service module for Orion is based on the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) developed and built by Airbus as a supply craft for the International Space Station. (Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Georgina Prodhan)