Posted on April 2, 2013, at 9:34 am .
Amy Butler at Aviation Week has a very informative story about how new medium-class launch vehicles and commercially available satellite buses will help the U.S. Air Force reduce the cost of its launch operations. The key points:
- ULA — a monopoly that operates Atlas V and Delta IV — will be facing future competition from SpaceX (Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy), Orbital Sciences Corporation (Antares), Lockheed Martin (Athena III, and ATK (Liberty).
- The new medium-class launch vehicles and commercially-available satellite buses are leading the Air Force toward building smaller and less expensive satellites. Currently, satellite sizes and costs are driven by a desire to maximize the amount of capability in each spacecraft due to high launch costs.
- SpaceX hopes to get the Falcon 9 version 1.1 — with its new Merlin 1D engine — certified to launch military payloads by the end of this year. The company must achieve three successful flights of the upgraded rocket with a payload fairing, two of which must be flown consecutively.
- Orbital is looking to certify its new Antares rocket by 2018 while ATK is eying late 2016 for Liberty. Lockheed Martin has not identified a date for certifying Athena III.
- The Air Force is making a bulk buy of at least 36 rocket cores from ULA. A request for proposal for 14 additional cores outside of the ULA order is expected in January at the earliest. The contracts would be awarded in FY 2015 for launches during FY 2017.
- The ULA bulk buy has provided a $7 billion reduction in cost over the old method of buying each launch vehicle singly. The new arrangement also calls for ULA to purchase long-lead parts, which increases risks for the company but provides more predictability and stability in production.
Read the full story.
Posted on March 30, 2013, at 8:55 am .
Atlas V launches OTV3 into orbit from Cape Canaveral. (Credit: Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance.)
Over at InnerSpace.net, Stewart Money is pushing for an end to ULA’s current monopoly on military launches by letting SpaceX fully compete for contracts immediately:
In the meantime, with news of defense cutbacks and the impacts of sequestration, which Administrator Bolden pointed out yesterday is a 10 year program, presented in dire tones almost daily, why exactly is it that United Launch Alliance, utterly uncompetitive on the commercial market, and with no meaningful program of technology improvement remotely on par with that being undertaken by SpaceX, still enjoys a competition-free firewall around 80% of its business, and worse, much worse, is still receiving an annual launch subsidy ranging between $500 million and $1 billion per year?
It’s a good question. The answer lies in understanding how the military performs its duties in keeping the nation safe, and in the different statuses of the two company’s launch vehicles.
Continue reading ‘Why the Air Force is Taking Its Time With New Launch Providers’
Posted on February 22, 2013, at 9:29 am .
This artist concept is what The Boeing Company’s CST-100 spacecraft processing is expected to look like in Space Florida’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with work stations on a clean floor. (Credit: Boeing)
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. (NASA PR) — The Boeing Company’s plans for its CST-100 spacecraft continue to firm up as the aerospace company works with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to establish what will be needed to communicate with the spacecraft and recover it when it returns from a mission.
The capsule-shaped spacecraft is on track to launch to low-Earth orbit atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Space Coast around the middle of the decade. It is designed to hold enough crew members to allow the spaceship to operate as a taxi and lifeboat on missions to the International Space Station.
Continue reading ‘Boeing CST-100 Program Making Rapid Progress’
Posted on February 8, 2013, at 4:21 pm .
Atlas V launches OTV3 into orbit from Cape Canaveral. (Credit: Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance.)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
New entrants hoping to break ULA’s monopoly on national security space (NSS) launches face a number of obstacles in getting their launch vehicles certified, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Perhaps the biggest challenge: the U.S. Air Force considers almost everything it launches into space to be its most critical payloads (Class A), requiring the services of proven rockets like ULA’s Atlas V or Delta IV. Military officials have yet to figure out how to re-classify some of these payloads as less critical (Class B, C and D), thus allowing them to be launched on vehicles with fewer flights under their belts.
Continue reading ‘Launch Vehicle Certification Process Poses Significant Challenges for New Entrants’
Posted on February 4, 2013, at 12:56 pm .
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
Hailing what it calls a “sea change” in space costs, Bigelow Aerospace has unveiled pricing information for governments, companies and individuals interested in using its planned private Alpha Space Station.
Transportation costs to the station begin at $26.25 million per seat for a 60-day visit. Leases for exclusive use and control over part of the space station begin at $25 million. Naming rights for the entire station will cost an additional $25 million per year.
Continue reading ‘Bigelow Offering Private Space Station at a Fraction of ISS Cost’
Posted on February 2, 2013, at 5:22 am .
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
China’s surging space program moved into second place in 2012 in terms of both orbital launches and payloads, passing the United States and inching closer to Russia.
China successfully launched 19 rockets last year, placing a total of 30 payloads into orbit, according to an annual report released by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). Russia led all nations with 34 payloads on 24 launches, while the United States came in third with 28 payloads on 13 launches.
Continue reading ‘China Surpassed U.S. in Launches, Payloads in 2012′
Posted on January 26, 2013, at 8:34 am .
By Rebecca Regan
NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and its industry partners have spent the last few years investing their time, money, efforts and reputations into shaping America’s next-generation human spaceflight capabilities.
“This program reflects a true partnership between NASA and industry where our goals are aligned toward ending the gap in U.S. human access to space” said Phil McAlister, NASA Commercial Spaceflight Development director, during a televised status update Jan. 9 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Continue reading ‘NASA and Industry Committed to Commercial Crew Program’
Posted on January 9, 2013, at 1:19 pm .
NASA Commercial Crew Briefing
Participants
- Phil McAlister, NASA Commercial Spaceflight Development director
- Ed Mango, NASA Commercial Crew Program manager
- Rob Meyerson, Blue Origin president and program manager
- John Mulholland, The Boeing Co. Commercial Programs Space Exploration vice president and program manager
- Mark Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada Corp vice president and SNC Space Systems chairman
- Garrett Reisman, Space Exploration Technologies Commercial Crew project manager
Phil McAlister
NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager
- Partnerships are very difficult – public private partnerships – makes challenges even greater
- These partnerships going very well
- NASA’s role is to facilitating the development – not do the development
- $1.5 billion awarded so far….
- CCDev 1: $50 million
- CCDev 2: $315 million
- CCiCAP: $1.1 Billion
- Certification: $29.6 million
- McAlister goes through the various cooperative activities being undertaken, including technical meetings, reimburseable Space Act Agreements, etc.
- Close to 50 Space Act Agreements just with commercial crew partners – allows them to use NASA facilities and benefit from NASA expertise and experience
Continue reading ‘NASA: Commercial Crew Program Moving Along Nicely’
Posted on January 4, 2013, at 5:10 am .
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
During recent public talks, Scaled Composites Founder Burt Rutan has bemoaned the lack of recent rocket development in the United States. After the initial burst of creativity in the 1950′s and 1960′s, decades went by with very few new rockets being developed. He has also pointed to Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipTwo, SpaceX’s Dragon and Stratolaunch Systems air-launch project (which he worked on for 20 years) as the only serious developments in the field at present.
My first thought was: Burt’s wrong. There’s a lot more going on than just that. Including developments just down the flight line in Mojave that he somehow fails to mention. And my second thought was: well, just how wrong is Burt, exactly?
A lot, it turns out.
Continue reading ‘America’s Rocket Renaissance’
Posted on December 11, 2012, at 12:43 pm .
Atlas V launches OTV3 into orbit from Cape Canaveral. (Credit: Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., (Dec. 11, 2012) – A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket successfully launched the third Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-3) for the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO) at 1:03 p.m. EST today from Space Launch Complex-41. The OTV, also known as the X-37B, supports space experimentation, risk reduction, and concept of operations development for long duration and reusable space vehicle technologies. The first two OTV missions also were successfully launched by ULA respectively on April 22, 2010 and March 5, 2011.
Continue reading ‘Atlas V Blasts X-37B into Orbit’
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