ORION Project

The ORION Project, sometimes referred to as Spartan I, was an Office of Naval Intelligence Naval Special Warfare program, overseen by the Colonial Military Administration, tasked with producing special advanced warfare squads to combat the Insurrection. They became experts in counter-insurgency operations, assassinations, raids, and eliminating high value targets (all considered black operations). ORION Project personnel utilized HEV orbital drops, Hornets, Armed Assault Boats (which were replaced by the HEV), and Pelican dropships to insert into mission areas. However, expectations for the new soldiers were not met, and the project was deactivated in 2506, and all members reassigned to other Special Operations units.

CMA Project
The precursor to the ORION Project was a set of bio-augmentations performed on soldiers by the Colonial Military Authority in the 24th century. Only a handful of candidates were "tested" before the program was declared ineffective and canceled.

SPARTAN-I
Well over a century later, in 2491, the UNSC decided to resurrect the Orion program in the form of the ORION Project. Marines were selected and given biological and mental enhancements. Originally there were sixty-five volunteers, but their numbers grew to three hundred at the project's height. These super soldiers were known as Spartans and were sent on covert missions against Rebel forces in the Outer Colonies. Eventually the project proved too costly to maintain and was canceled in 2506, despite the Spartans' obvious effectiveness. The surviving Spartans were then slowly filtered back into the military through special operations groups. Many of these survivors experienced side effects from their augmentations, which was covered up by ONI, who stated they had contracted "Boren’s Syndrome", supposedly caused by radiation exposure. A benefit of one of these side effects is immunity to Flood infection, though ONI never learned of this.

Two SPARTAN-Is had major roles during the Human Covenant War: Avery Johnson and Nolan Byrne, becoming the first two Humans to face the Covenant in military combat (during the Skirmish Over Harvest), as well as during the subsequent First Battle of Harvest. It is known that Avery Johnson would rise to the rank of Sergeant Major, as well as possibly being the last Human to die during the Human-Covenant War, while the fate of Nolan Byrne is unknown.

Known ORION Project personnel

 * Avery Junior Johnson
 * Nolan Byrne (conjecture)
 * James Lee
 * Gilly
 * Morales


 * Gladys Wilson
 * Franklin Mendez (conjecture)

Spartan 1.1
The children of Spartan 1.0s are called Spartan 1.1s, including Janissary James and Kevin Morales. There are sixteen 1.1s. They have much of the same augmentations as their parents, though without the same military training. Some of them tried to create their own army to fight the Covenant, but just as they were about to bring the fight to the Covenant, the Covenant invaded Earth.

Operation: CHARLEMAGNE
Operation: CHARLEMAGNE was ORION's first special operation. Conducted against the Secessionist Union, the operation marked the project's first successful deployment. The Spartans recovered the sub-orbital station above Eridanus-II from Insurrectionists. In the process they lost only one soldier and were never observed.

Operation: KALEIDOSCOPE
Operation: KALEIDOSCOPE was an assassination and decapitation strike carried out by Avery Johnson against the leadership of the Secessionist Union.

Operation: TANGLEWOOD
Presently, nothing is known about this operation.

Trivia

 * Project Orion was also a spacecraft program in the real world. It was the first engineering design study of spacecraft powered by nuclear pulse propulsion. Its supporters felt that it had great potential for space travel, but it lost political approval because of concerns with fallout from its propulsion. The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 is generally acknowledged to have ended the project.
 * SPARTAN-Is seem to be the only known Humans to refer to their successors as "Spartan 2.0s" rather than "SPARTAN-IIs."
 * The ORION Project was apparently classified by Section Zero, as even in 2524 the majority of UNSC personnel had no knowledge about it.
 * It is unknown how Spartan-Is were codenamed or even if they were codenamed at all. It seems unlikely they adopted formalized codenames, given the fact that all known SPARTAN-Is used their normal names in operational circumstances.