It's Been a Big Week for Commercial Space

Just to recap the news from Commercial Space in the last week:

• SpaceX gets approval to combine their COTS demonstration flights 2 and 3 into a single flight, and a firm launch date of February 7, 2011.  We're only eight weeks away from the first commercial delivery of supplies to the ISS!

• StratoLaunch announces their plans to build an air-launched solution for placing payloads of up to 13,500 kg in LEO.  Scaled Composites will create the world's largest airplane to carry a SpaceX Falcom 9 derivative to 30,000 feet where the rocket will be launched to orbit.

• NASA announces they will be using Space Act Agreements, rather than FAR-based contracts for the third phase of the Commercial Crew Development program.

• Orbital Sciences announced that its new launcher (also part of the COTS program), formerly known as the Taurus II, has been renamed the Antares.

CCDev3: The Glass is Half Full

NASA has made lemonade out of the lemons Congress gave them (Commercial Crew gets only $406 million in the coming year).  Dropping the idea of Firm Fixed-Price contracts under the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARs) and choosing instead to continue phase 3 of the CCDev using Space Act Agreements (SAAs) will allow NASA to remain engaged with multiple suppliers and keep costs down for those suppliers.

The largest concerns and complaints being aired by members of congress and the press generally involve how much control NASA will lose.  Many people are picking up on comments from NASA's Bill Gerstenmaier that while the SAA approach will provide more flexibility, it "doesn't insure that we're going to get exactly what we need coming out the other side".

How can anyone believe that the suppliers vying for the ultimate contracts to deliver NASA astronauts to LEO are not completely aware of what NASA needs?  After two rounds of CCDev work, they know precisely what is required.  And if for some reason one of these companies does not produce a solution that satisfies NASA in the end, NASA will not be contracting for their services.

Continuing CCDev under SAAs is the best news we've had in months, and it in no way threatens NASA getting their requirements met.

Summary of NASA/ATK Commercial Crew Announcement

At 3:00pm EDT today, NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) made a joint announcement regarding a possible acceleration of LEO crew transportation (see the Press Release here).

Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program Manager, began his remarks by pointing out that Commercial Crew is making making steady progress, with development remaining on time, and on budget.  He then went to announce, as expected by many, that CC has entered into an unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) that will allow NASA and ATK to share information, and it grants ATK access to Kennedy Space Center during Liberty development.  The agreement will run though next spring, and will include a series of milestones agreed to by both parties.  This SAA puts ATK in a position to be ready to compete in the next CCdev phase.

Kent Rominger from ATK expounded on the virtues of Liberty, noting that both stages have extensive flight experience.  The first stage is an SRB from the STS, and the upper stage is the Ariane 5 Core stage (45 consecutive successful flights for the upper stage).

Mr. Rominger answered the question "Why Liberty?" with the following points:

• They believe it is the safest, most reliable means to put crew on orbit.
• Liberty can lift 44,000 lb to LEO.
• The White House's new Space Policy calls for expanded international cooperation, and that's what Liberty is (a U.S. and European commercial partnership)
• This will bring jobs into Florida, and take advantage of existing infrastructure and talent.
• Liberty is extremely simple.  One engine on first stage, one on the second.  Minimize things that can go wrong, so you minimize opportunities for a failure.
• No other provider can match our value, or our safety record.

During the Q&A session, a few interesting points were made:

1. Kent Rominger referred to NASA's human rating requirements as "onerous."  Nevertheless, the two stages of Liberty were each developed from the beginning as parts of launch systems intended for human flight, and they believe they can meet the requirements.
2. Ed Mango made it clear that NASA is NOT interested in doing spacecraft integration (crew vehicle to launcher).  They will give their business to commercial teams that offer a fully integrated solution.
3. Kent Rominger stated that ATK will continue working on Liberty and maturing the system whether they are recipients of CCDev 3 funds or not.
4. Ed Mango: We want multiple providers for carrying crew to LEO.  That assumes that there is sufficient funding at NASA to support this.  We'll always have a Russian capability available, and we won't say no to that.

I'll follow up with some analysis later.  Here's a video to bring you up to speed on the Liberty:

Is ATK the Newest Member of the CCDev Club?

Artist's Concept of
Liberty Launcher (ATK)

Next Tuesday, NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) will jointly announce an agreement that could "accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities."  It will not be carried live on NASA Television.

In the wake of the Russia's grounding of Soyuz launchers (effectively catching the U.S. manned space program with their pants down), the urgency to find alternatives is growing.

In April, ATK failed to receive CCDev-2 funds for the development of its Liberty launch vehicle. Undeterred, they decided to continue development of Liberty as a human-rated launcher in anticipation of future business with NASA (see SpaceFlightNow article).

I'm just speculating of course, but it seems highly likely that NASA and ATK have entered into a Space Act Agreement (SAA) to include the Liberty in the CCDev program.  Whether they will receive NASA funding, or work under an unfunded SAA (as ULA is doing in their efforts to man-rate the Atlas V, according to Aviation Week) is yet to be seen.

Even though the Liberty scored higher than the Atlas V in the CCDev-2 evaluations, none of the CCDev crew spacecraft competitors agreed to fly their craft atop the Liberty, according to Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc.  Are they nervous about putting people on top of a solid fuel booster?

I suspect NASA is trying to keep as many manned launch options as possible.  While no rocket is currently human-rated (even STS wasn't), The Falcon 9, Delta IV, Atlas V and now the Liberty are all viable options.  Increasing the competition may be the single biggest contributor to the hoped-for acceleration of the program.

UPDATE: I misread the press release-- the announcement wil not be carried on NASA TV.  Video highlights will be available afterward in NASA TV's Video File segment.

UPDATE 9/12: NASA has now decided to go ahead and broadcast the announcement live on NASA TV after all.  That's tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:00pm EDT.