Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today’s budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space….

Currently, the commercial space effort stands uncomfortably close to the brink of financial starvation. Deep space transportation development is being stretched out by similar restrictions. Business is looking to see if the government is serious about providing the critical support or whether this effort will be wasted as so many earlier government programs which withered away on the very cusp of success: National Launch System, Orbital Space Plane, and others.

Hale’s full testimony is reproduced after the break.

Testimony of N. Wayne Hale, Jr.
before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
May 16, 2013

I thank the committee for inviting me to testify concerning the growth of the space industry including the private sector space transportation.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am hardly a disinterested party in this topic. I am and have always been a passionate believer that space exploration and the industries that may derive from it will benefit humanity in ways beyond our imagining. I have spent most of my professional life working in the large government space programs of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. During those years I have seen NASA at its very best and at its worst. The hard working dedication of my colleagues at NASA personnel is nothing short of phenomenal, and their talent and creativity is second to none. However, their endeavors have frequently been stymied due to the inherent bureaucratic inefficiencies of government work and the frequent shifts in priorities and funding that whipsaw most space initiatives. This has led me to believe there must be a better way to develop and operate space systems.

In my last assignment before retirement from government service, I worked with Frank Bauer, the Chief Engineer of the Exploration Systems Directorate, to define the management philosophy, protocols, and processes for the then new Commercial Crew Program within NASA. After my retirement, my work has continued as a consultant. My company, Special Aerospace Services,and I are paid advisors to a number of entities involved in the commercial crew and commercial space cargo enterprises. And I have volunteered my time to work with the Commercial Spaceflight Federation to establish safety, management, and engineering standards for all the members of this fledgling industry. So the committee can see that I am hardly a disinterested party and should weigh my testimony as such.

Establishing good, effective safety, engineering, and management standards in a voluntary industry association is the hallmark of any reputable and mature industry. I am pleased to report that the CSF is making good progress in setting up voluntary processes which will ensure public safety and promote general success in this difficult business. Industry group standards can alleviate the need for government regulations by allowing the members of a trade association to tailor best practices specifically for their industry. Evolution of these industry standards inevitably proceeds more rapidly than the development of government regulations and can therefore take rapid advantage of best practices as they emerge.

The most singularly vexing problem with space flight is the high cost of getting to low earth orbit. As the noted science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once observed, ‘when you are in earth orbit you are half way to anywhere in the universe’ which accurately reflects the physics of the
situation.

The lack of low cost transportation to that point located just above the earth’s atmosphere and moving at 17,500 mph forward velocity has prevented potential space entrepreneurs more than any other factor. Hundreds of potential business opportunities in the limitless resources of the solar system have floundered on the high cost of transportation to low earth orbit. Asteroid mining, energy production, zero gravity manufacturing are all within our grasp technologically but will not be profitable until reliable and reasonably affordable transportation systems are in place.

New systems for transportation to low earth orbit have enormously high development costs. Private investors, with a few exceptions, are loath to provide the capital needed to develop low earth orbit transportation without clear and immediate business ready to purchase tickets.

So we are in a ‘chicken or the egg’ paradox. Space business needs low cost transportation to become profitable, while potential private transportation
services need established business to justify the cost of construction. This is not the first time that America has been in this situation. Both the early railroads and fledgling air transportation industries found themselves becalmed in similar straits. In both these cases, and others, the federal taxpayers stepped in to provide critical resources to help new industries develop. Those investments have been paid back myriad-fold in tax revenues when the new industries caught fire and provided transportation systems that were the envy of the world.

NASA and its predecessor agency the NACA provided needed aeronautical research to make air transportation as inexpensive and safe as we find it today. The federal investment in aeronautics development has paid off handsomely in the development of a multi-billion dollar industry. Indeed, one of the largest sectors of net exports in the American economy is aerospace with billion dollar sales a common occurrence.

The history of space flight – after the first early steps to demonstrate that space flight was even possible – has been marked with the goal of decreasing the cost of transportation to low earth orbit. In my home I have an entire shelf of books populated by volumes of studies and proposals from a multitude of thinkers spread over decades on that subject: how to provide reliable safe space transportation on the cheap.

The space system that consumed much of my professional career, the space shuttle, was established to achieve just such a low cost goal. But the technologies of the 1970s, harnessed to a risk adverse government apparatus resulted in a system that was only slightly less expensive than those which went before.

In the last decade, the United States embarked on a bold new experiment to turn over the creative reins of spacecraft development to entrepreneurial, nimble, flexible, creative private commercial teams. Bolstered with a modicum of taxpayer resources, these businesses have leveraged private investment to create the critical mass to develop new, much cheaper transportation systems. We see the first fruits of success today with cargo carrying craft: the SpaceX Falcon and Dragon, and the Orbital Antares and Cygnus. These cargo carrying privately developed vehicles are starting to supply our government outpost, the International Space Station. In future years others, the Boeing CST-100 and the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser will be added to the fleet to carry human beings as well as cargo.

Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today’s budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space.

This is not to devalue the development of truly deep space exploration systems by the government. Those high risk, high cost systems payback over such are long term that they would never be funded by private investment. But, like the expenses incurred by Lewis and Clark, Captain Zebulon Pike, and a host of other government expeditions in our history, the payback from exploration will be enormous for both the country and for all of humanity. Just at a more distant point in the future than business spreadsheets normally run. The SLS and the MPCV should be developed in conjunction with the commercial low earth orbit transportation systems. Flying to cis-lunar space to inspect a captured asteroid is an engineering and operations test worthy of a first deep space mission. But that mission can only be a first step. More should follow.

The commercial systems will enable the deep space exploration initiative in substantial ways. First of all because the ISS is our space test laboratory for the technologies and systems that deep space exploration will need. Operation in space, aboard the ISS, is the most effective means to wring out life support, communications, propulsion, and other technologies. Commercial transportation of cargo and crews to the ISS directly support deep space systems development. As deep space exploration proceeds, commercial cargo and crew vehicles will likely be called upon to aid with assembly and fuel delivery to low earth orbit where we will finalize preparations to head into the vast deep. Cost effective commercial transportation to low earth orbit can make a vital difference in equipping the deep space fleet.

So the two efforts go hand in hand. Funding equity between the two programs is necessary to ensure the timely success of both. Currently, the commercial space effort stands uncomfortably close to the brink of financial starvation. Deep space transportation development is being stretched out by similar restrictions. Business is looking to see if the government is serious about providing the critical support or whether this effort will be wasted as so many earlier government programs which withered away on the very cusp of success: National Launch System, Orbital Space Plane, and others.

I urge the Congress to fully fund these vital activities, both the commercial crew program and the exploration systems. They will allow America and American industry to lead in the exploration and development of human activity in our solar system. When the historians of the future look back on our era, they will recognize the movement of humanity from planet earth into the solar system as the pivotal event of our times. There is no project that is so important for the long term success of humankind. I would hope that those historians record that at this crossroad of history that a creative, enterprising, farsighted nation called America led the way.

The prizes both economic and historic are too great to bypass. If America does not lead in these enterprises, somebody else will. And the leader will reap the greatest rewards both in the near term and in the longer term.

For all our limitations, America is a very rich country. There are many things which America needs to do for the present moment: provide for a strong military to protect us in a dangerous world, educate our children, care for our elderly and infirm, revitalize our transportation infrastructure of roads, bridges, airports, and more. All of these activities are of vital importance today. Space exploration is about the future. Space exploration is possibly the only line item in the federal budget that is all about the future. Currently we spend one half of one percent of our nation’s treasure on the future. Isn’t the future worth that investment?

CST-100 (Credit: Boeing)

CCP Spotlight on Development
Via NASA

NASA’s Partner Integration Team, also called a PIT Crew, recently participated in a review of The Boeing Company’s electrical power system plans for the CST-100 spacecraft. The power system will be a critical component of the CST-100 because it will generate the power required during a mission and distribute it to all of the spacecraft’s onboard equipment.

To learn more about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and its partners, visit www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

Video Caption: The US Air Force Research Laboratory’s Boeing X-51A WaveRider unmanned vehicle achieved the longest air-breathing hypersonic, scramjet-powered flight on its May 1 fourth test flight, flying for 3.5 minutes on supersonic-combustion ramjet power and reaching a maximum speed of Mach 5.1.

Aviation Week has a report on a hypersonic test flight that took place on Wednesday:

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Boeing X-51A Waverider demonstrator successfully achieved sustained, scramjet-powered, air-breathing hypersonic flight above Mach 5 in its final test flight on May 1.

Although the Air Force is not yet commenting on details of the flight, the X-51A is thought to have experienced positive acceleration to speeds in excess of Mach 5 and run for the full duration of the planned powered phase of the test. Based on targets established for the previous test attempt, this could have been as long as 300 sec., followed by an unpowered gliding descent of around 500 sec. prior to impacting the sea in the Pacific Test range west of California. If these times and speeds are confirmed, they will represent new records for sustained, air-breathing hypersonic flight.

Read the full story.

Petrified wood (Credit: Jon Sullivan)

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

On Sunday, I dropped by Bob’s Army Navy Store in Mojave, hoping to pick up a pair of good binoculars for the SpaceShipTwo flight scheduled for the next day. Although my search was in vain, I did visit the area on the west side of the building where there are a variety of rocks for sale.

There were rocks of every kind: large rocks and small rocks, crystals, rocks with scaly lizards scurrying underneath to escape from someone who was equally afraid of them. I was fascinated. I had no idea there were that many types of rocks. Or that people would want to buy such things in large numbers. What would they use them for? I was stumped.

What really caught my interest, though, was the petrified wood.

There were entire piles of these rocks, the remains of trees that had turned to stone after their organic material had been replaced by minerals. They had somehow retained their original appearance as living beings even though everything that made them alive was sucked out of them eons ago. It was cool.

I recalled all this two days later when I read the latest commercial crew news from NASA. The latest update led me to believe that something similar has happened in Congress, with some mysterious process turning the logic centers in the brains of Congress representatives to stone. They have the appearance of living, thinking human beings capable of complex problem solving, but their political positions have somehow become frozen in place.

What resulted in this sad conclusion was the following piece of news:

NASA has signed a $424 million modification to its contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) for full crew transportation services to the International Space Station in 2016 with return and rescue services extending through June 2017.

The reason for this contract extension is very simply: Congress has repeated cut the Obama Administration’s request for the Commercial Crew program, typically by $300 to $400 million each year. With each reduction now, there is yet another delay in fielding crew vehicles and an expenditure of a similar amount on the back end to ensure our astronauts can reach the space station.

Why Congressmen are so intent on paying Russian contractors for these services rather than funding American companies such as Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corporation to develop the same capability is a big mystery. It has mystified me for years.

My best guess is that Congress is both skeptical of the viability of commercial crew and petrified (in an emotional and political sense) of the changes the program could bring if does succeed. People who are equally afraid of both success and failure have a tendency to freeze. They don’t take risks and cling to what they know best — however outdated, self-defeating and short-sighted it might be.

Congress is clearly stuck in that very position. Sadly, there is little indication that the recent successes of SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation in the commercial cargo program has swayed very many people in Congress that commercial crew can succeed. I might be wrong on that assessment, but the early statements on the FY 2014 budget are not encouraging.

CCP Spotlight on Development

NASA’s International Space Station Program (ISS) Program is gearing up for a review early this month about the docking system spacecraft could use for future missions to the space station, including the companies working with the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

Plans call for the NASA Docking System (NDS) design to be made available to all U.S.-based crew-carrying spacecraft docking with the space station in the future. The docking system will be able to transfer power, data, commands, air and communications between the two craft as they orbit the Earth.

CCP’s three Certification Products Contract (CPC) contractors, The Boeing Company, Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) Space Systems and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), will be able to look at the results of the review and provide feedback on how they plan to incorporate the NDS into their spacecraft.

An artist concept of Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft atop its integrated launch vehicle, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. (Credit: Boeing)

HOUSTON (NASA PR) – The Boeing Company of Houston, a NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) partner, has successfully completed a preliminary design review (PDR) of the component that would connect the company’s new crew capsule to its rocket.

The review is one of six performance milestones Boeing has completed for NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to make available commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers. The company is on track to complete all 19 of its milestones during CCiCap.

Boeing is one of three U.S. companies NASA is working with during CCiCap to set the stage for a crewed orbital demonstration mission around the middle of the decade. Future development and certification initiatives eventually will lead to the availability of human spaceflight services for NASA to send its astronauts to the International Space Station.

The component that was reviewed is called the Launch Vehicle Adapter. The critical structure is being designed by United Launch Alliance (ULA) to join Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation-100 (CST-100) spacecraft to ULA’s Atlas V rocket, just above the rocket’s second stage.

“Solid systems engineering integration is critical to the design of a safe system,” said Ed Mango, NASA’s CCP manager. “Boeing and all of NASA’s partner companies are working to build in proper systems integration into their designs. This review with Boeing and their partner ULA was a good review of the current state of these important design interfaces.”

In recent weeks, teams from NASA, Boeing and ULA met at ULA’s headquarters in Denver, Colo., to assess requirements and capabilities to safely launch people into low-Earth orbit from U.S. soil once again. The PDR was a culmination of early development and preliminary analysis to demonstrate the design is ready to proceed with detailed engineering.

“The PDR was an outstanding integrated effort by the Boeing, ULA and NASA teams,” said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Programs. “The ULA design leverages the heritage hardware of the Atlas V to integrate with the CST-100, setting the baseline for us to proceed to wind tunnel testing and the Launch Segment-level PDR in June.”

In addition to the Launch Vehicle Adapter PDR, Boeing recently completed two additional CCiCap milestones, including the Engineering Release (ER) 2.0 software release and the Landing and Recovery Ground Systems and Ground Communications design review.

The ER 2.0 software release was completed Jan. 25 in Boeing’s Avionics and Software Integration Facility Lab in Houston. This test laid the foundation for the software structure to control and fly the spacecraft, as well as communicate with pilots and ground systems.

The landing and recovery ground systems and ground communications design review Jan. 16 to 18 in Titusville, Fla., established the baseline plan for equipment and infrastructure needed for CST-100 spacecraft ground communications and landing and recovery operations.

For more information about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and its aerospace industry partners, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

BOEING’S COMMERCIAL CREW MILESTONES

Lynx engine hot fire. (Credit: XCOR Aerospace)

March 26, 2013, Mojave, Calif. (XCOR PR) – XCOR Aerospace today announced a first in aviation and space history, the firing of a full piston pump-powered rocket engine. This breakthrough is the foundation for fully reusable spacecraft that can fly multiple times per day, every day. It is a game changing technology that has the power to fundamentally alter the way we as a society view, visit, and utilize the abundant resources around our planet and in our solar system.

The initial portion of XCOR’s pump test program culminated in a 67-second engine run with the propulsion system mated to the flight weight Lynx fuselage.  After the installation of the flight sized liquid oxygen tank, the next test sequence will extend the engine run duration to the full powered flight duration of the Lynx Mark I suborbital vehicle.

“Through use of our proprietary rocket propellant piston pumps we deliver both kerosene and liquid oxygen to our rocket engines and eliminate the need for heavy, high-pressure fuel and oxidizer tanks.  It also enables our propulsion system to fly multiple times per day and last for tens of thousands of flights,” said XCOR Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason. “This is one more step toward a significant reduction in per-flight cost and turnaround time, while increasing overall flight safety.”

Boeing provided additional funding to complete the XCOR test sequence and advance low-cost rocket propulsion technology. The demonstrated results of the full pump fed engine firing for extended periods helps to ensure the technology migrates into broader global applications.

“Unlike the expensive and finicky turbopumps on today’s rocket propulsion systems, XCOR’s piston pumps are designed to be as powerful in their thrust class as turbines, but as easy to manufacture, maintain and operate as an automotive engine,” said XCOR Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nelson. “This is the culmination of a 12 year program to develop this unique technology. The kerosene piston pump has been successfully flight-proven during our 40-flight test program on the X-Racer aircraft. We’ll be entering another flight test program soon with Lynx and these pumps and engines will power XCOR and the industry to the next level.”

# # #

About XCOR Aerospace: XCOR Aerospace is on the verge of becoming the most active spaceflight company in the world based on our safer, reliable and reusable rocket-powered vehicles, propulsion systems, advanced non-flammable composites and rocket piston pumps. XCOR is building Lynx, a piloted, two-seat, fully reusable liquid rocket-powered vehicle that takes-off and lands horizontally. The Lynx-family of vehicles serves three primary missions depending on their specific type including: research & scientific missions, private spaceflight, and micro satellite launch (only on the Lynx Mark III). Lynx production models (designated Lynx Mark II) are designed to be robust, multi-mission (research / scientific or private spaceflight) commercial vehicles capable of flying to 100+ km in altitude up to four times per day. Lynx vehicles are available to customers in the free world on a wet lease basis. XCOR also works with aerospace prime contractors and government customers on major propulsion systems development. XCOR Aerospace is based in Mojave, California and is creating a new Research and Development Center in Midland, Texas. (www.xcor.com)

NASA 60-Day Commercial Crew Update

In December, NASA selected Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX for Commercial Crew Program phase I certification contracts. Under these, also known as “Certification Products Contracts (CPCs), the Commercial Crew partners will provide NASA with their proposed alternate standards, preliminary hazard analyses work, and plans for verification, validation, and certification. NASA experts then will assess these deliverables, relative to proven agency requirements and standards for human spaceflight, and provide feedback to the partners regarding the acceptability of their approaches toward ultimately achieving NASA certification to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA’s responses will represent binding decisions that will carry forward into the next phase of certifiction, and therefore must be carefully analyzed and considered. Kickoff meetings have now been held with all three contractors and the work on NASA certifcation for ISS crew rotation services is underway. Through CPC, NASA receives and assesses commercial partners’ plans to meet NASA requirements.

To maintain the partners’ fast-paced momentum to develop crew transportation systems that will once again enable sending people to space from U.S. soil, NASA has committed to providing responses to every CPC deliverable within 90 days of receipt. NASA anticipates dozens of products will be delivered from each partner. Some will involve complex topics, including innovative ways of ensuring safety through design and testing that differ from NASA’s traditional experiences.

Given this large volume of expected work, its technical complexity, and the lean size of the NASA workforce supporting Commercial Crew, producing timely responses will be a tremendous challenge for the Commercial Crew Program. According to Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of Commercial Space Development, “This is our first opportunity to begin telling our partners how well their plans meet our requirements for the NASA missions. It is critical that we provide timely feedback in order to influence their designs without slowing their progress.”

To meet the challenge, the Commercial Crew Program has initiated an organizational structure to give special attention to CPC product evaluation. With the start of CPCs, a deputy specifically responsible for
products required for NASA certification has been added to the leadership of each partner integration team. Furthermore, the Commercial Crew Program has established a product flow management group which is responsible for coordinating the workload across all the partner teams, and in particular expediting the internal NASA reviews culminating with the formal Program-level decision boards.

NASA is open to alternative approaches to its requirements, and believes that there is more than one way to fly safely. CPC is the mechanism that now allows NASA to formally tell its partners which innovative methods will be acceptable when it comes time to fly NASA astronauts to the Space Station on the commercial systems. Developing clear and timely decisions for the commercial partners is being given the highest priority in the months to come.

CCiCap milestone completion status—Boeing: 5 of 19. SpaceX: 4 of 14. Sierra Nevada: 3 of 9.

NASA 60 Day Commercial Crew Update

Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) milestones are on schedule, putting the U.S. one step closer to ending the gap in human access to space. In less than six months, twelve of the forty two planned milestones have been successfully completed. Furthermore, each of the partners has achieved progress beyond the formal milestone work content.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) completed its first Integrated System Safety Analysis Review in January, which analyzed potential safety hazards and controls for the Dream Chaser spacecraft, Atlas V launch vehicle, and ground and mission systems. Meanwhile, assembly, integration, and testing of the Dream Chaser test vehicle continued at SNC’s Louisville, Colo. facility. When completed, the vehicle will be shipped to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. There, it will be used for unpiloted free flight approach and landing tests in the coming months. In addition to its formal milestone work, SNC has begun taking steps to manufacture their next test vehicle structure at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

In December, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) conducted its Ground and Ascent Preliminary Design Review milestone. The review covered their latest designs as well as the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft performance during the ascent and abort flight regimes. In addition, SpaceX continued qualification testing of the Falcon 9 “version 1.1” launch vehicle in preparation for upcoming commercial and NASA missions. In partnership with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton Roads, Va., SpaceX recently performed aerothermal wind tunnel testing of a Dragon spacecraft scale model. Development and testing of the SuperDraco launch abort system engine continues, with 58 test firings for 112 seconds total accumulated run time to date.

The Boeing Company recently completed two CCiCap milestones — an engineering release of flight software for testing, and a Landing and Recovery and Ground Communications Design Review. This recent review completed the preliminary design phase of the full ground systems element for Boeing’s integrated crew transportation system. In addition to CCiCap milestones, Boeing is continuing work at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to convert former space shuttle facilities for CST-100 processing and operations use, and the company recently completed development tests of up-righting bags for contingency water landings.

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.

The company, one of three NASA is working with to establish a commercial industry to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory, recently completed its fifth performance milestone and two in-depth reviews as part of the CST-100′s development.

An artist concept of Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft atop its integrated launch vehicle, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. (Credit: Boeing)

The latest review milestone under the funded Space Act Agreement with NASA during the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative at Boeing’s facility in Titusville, Fla., established the baseline plan for the equipment and infrastructure needed to run spacecraft ground communications and landing and recovery operations.

The company also completed back-to-back production design and “phase 1″ safety reviews in November, which allowed agency managers and engineers to analyze safety and support systems being designed for the CST, short for Crew Space Transportation.

“The safety review showed some ways Boeing is mitigating and controlling hazards in the preliminary design review level of the integrated design,” said Gennaro Caliendo of CCP’s Partner Integration Office. “Boeing has a great deal of experience in the human spaceflight business and has been integral in helping develop future spacecraft for our national capability.”

The third review covered Boeing’s progress in developing the ground portions of mission operations software.

“It gave us an opportunity to look at how they are moving ahead and to provide input to their products,” Caliendo said. “Innovation and ingenuity of commercial companies will be important, but since NASA will be purchasing a transportation service to the space station, we have requirements that companies eventually will have to meet if they plan on competing for services in the future.”

The design of the CST-100 resembles NASA’s legacy Apollo command and service modules. However, the CST-100 crew module is larger with a greater habitable interior with the capacity to carry up to seven astronauts or four astronauts and cargo, compared to the three sent on the lunar missions of the 1960s and ’70s. It also is designed for reusability for up to ten missions.

The service module is considerably smaller than Apollo because it doesn’t need a propulsion engine capable of getting it back from the moon. That also reduces the amount of equipment and consumables necessary for exclusively low-Earth orbit missions.

Recent analyses of landing systems have taken place in Delamar Dry Lake in Nevada, proving the CST-100 can return to Earth with three parachutes, as was the case in Apollo. Just prior to landing, air bags will deploy on the bottom of the spacecraft allowing a safe touchdown on the ground. To add flexibility, the CST-100 also can return for a water landing.

Boeing currently is on schedule to complete a total of 19 milestones during the base period of its CCiCap agreement. The company will be designing both flight and ground systems hardware, writing and testing code for flight software, developing ground communications systems and performing wind tunnel tests. All of the work leads up to a Critical Design Review scheduled for April 2014 prior to optional qualification and flight demonstration milestones.

“The CDR will be an integrated systems review,” Caliendo said. “We’ll be looking at how the spacecraft is integrated with the launch vehicle, ground systems and everything needed to manufacture, process, launch, fly and return the CST-100.”

Bill Lane, deputy partner manager in CCP’s Partner Integration Office, said the recent reviews are ensuring that NASA’s new initiative remains on track. “These reviews provided the foundation of capsule production, processing and flight operations,” Lane said. “The teams have worked very hard to identify hardware, software and mission operations requirements that will be necessary to ensure flight safety starting from the initial production and continuing through the full life-cycle of the capsule.”

NASA’s new CCiCap agreements follow two previous commercial endeavors by the agency to spur the development of crew transportation systems and subsystems. Work by NASA’s industry partners during CCiCap will set the stage for a crewed orbital demonstration mission around the middle of the decade.

For more information about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

For a country that had a mere 13 orbital launches last year and a handful of suborbital ones, the United States certainly has an embarrassments of riches in terms of places from which to launch.

The nation has 18 launch sites and spaceports in eight states and one foreign country (Marshall Islands). That doesn’t include Sea Launch, a company that launches from an ocean platform in international waters using a U.S. based platform. And if that wasn’t already enough, there are 10 more proposed facilities that are under consideration or being actively pursued by different entities.

So, whenever companies can actually start increasing the rates for orbital and suborbital flights, the country’s ready to accommodate it.  In the meantime, we’ve got a lot of underutilized infrastructure.

U.S. launch facilities and spaceports. (Credit: FAA)

The map above and table below provide details on America’s launch sites and spaceports. Both are taken from the FAA’s Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2012. I added an entry in the table for Blue Origin’s facility in Texas.

The 18 launch sites are a little misleading because of the co-location of government and commercial launch facilities. For example, the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Spaceport and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are all located in one area. The same goes for Wallops Flight Facility and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia, and Vandenberg Air Force Base and the California Spaceport in the Golden State.

As a result, it is more like 14 locations (broadly defined) where American launches take place. That number is one more than the U.S. total of 13 orbital launches last year. Twelve of those flights took place from two sites — Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The other flight was the air-launch of a Pegasus rocket over the Marshall Islands.

Some of these launch facilities and spaceports are inactive. The Oklahoma Spaceport at Burns Flat has been empty for years since Rocketplane Global left the state and subsequently went bankrupt. Edwards Air Force Base is also inactive at the current time.

Mojave Air and Space Port, where several suborbital and orbital space vehicles are under development, has not hosted a flight into space since SpaceShipOne landed on Oct. 4, 2004. That could soon change, however. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is set to begin powered test flights in the coming months, with the hope of reaching space by the end of the year. XCOR is also scheduled to begin flights of its Lynx suborbital space plane in Mojave later in this year, although that version will not be capable of flying into space.

New Mexico officials are anxiously awaiting the completion of SpaceShipTwo’s flight test program, after which Virgin Galactic will begin commercial operations at Spaceport America near Las Cruces. Virgin Galactic is the spaceport’s anchor and only tenant thus far. Virgin officials are hopeful that commercial missions could begin in 2014.

Cecil Field in Florida has an FAA license for suborbital flights, but it, too, is waiting for the the development of suborbital vehicles that might one day fly from there.  Unlike Spaceport America, however, Cecil Field is an active airport with many operators and tenants, so the wait does not pose any significant problems.

XCOR is considering flying from Cecil Field in the future. The company also has plans to set up a production facility in Brevard County, and it has its eye on the Space Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center as an operating base. Federal officials are currently weighing ideas for turning SLF into a private-public partnership for a range of air- and spacecraft.

Another Mojave-based company, Stratolaunch Systems, is considering launching rockets from the SLF. The company is building a massive carrier aircraft that will air launch a rocket that will place medium-sized payloads into orbit.

Stratolaunch launches are still a few years away. Up in Virginia, officials at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) are gearing up for a busy year. Orbital Sciences Corporation is set to make the initial flights of its new Antares rocket and Cygnus freighter, the latter of which is designed to take cargo to the International Space Station. Successful flights will be a major boost for Virginia’s space sector.

More on the Way

Additional spaceports and launch sites are now under consideration or active development in ten locations in five states and Puerto Rico. Four of the launch locations are in Texas, two in Florida, and one each in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

The table below is derived from the FAA’s Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2012. I’ve added entries for the Camden County Spaceport in Georgia and the proposed Shiloh launch facility in Florida.

SpaceX is driving some of this activity. In addition to the Brownsville and Shiloh locations, the company has also looked at sites in Georgia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Although no one has confirmed the exact locations, it is possible that the Camden County, Roosevelt Roads and Kalaeloa sites have been considered.

The Midland Spaceport will be located at an existing international airport. It is a result of XCOR’s decision to re-locate its research and development operations to the West Texas city, which has offered an $10 million incentives package.

The Front Range Spaceport plan is a bit of a puzzlement. The goal is to be a center for point-to-point rocket transportation, first between cities and eventually continents.
Board a plane in Sydney and fly to Colorado in an hour, then transfer to nearby Denver International Airport (DIA) for a domestic flight.

It’s a terrific vision; the problem is that most serious experts believe that long-distance point-to-point travel is still a couple of decades away.  In the meantime, the close proximity of busy DIA doesn’t make the spaceport especially attractive for suborbital providers.

Looking Ahead

At the present time, the United States has a serious mismatch between its launch facilities and its launch capabilities. This is a result of a number of factors, including NASA’s decision to end the space shuttle program before it had a successor in place and delays in getting new reusable suborbital vehicles ready to fly. The low launch rate also reflects America’s lack of competitiveness in booking commercial satellite flights.

However, there are a number of positive signs that things are beginning to turn around. On the suborbital side, test flights this year by Virgin Galactic and XCOR will begin to demonstration the potential of this new chapter in space exploration. We also can expect to see continued progress from other suborbital companies, including Masten Space Systems, Armadillo Aerospace and Blue Origin.

Within a few years, we could be seeing daily suborbital flights carrying tourists and scientific experiments to the nearest reaches of space. Some companies might fly to space several times a day. That would bring about a significant change in our perceptions about space, even if the flights only go 70 miles up. The heavens would seem accessible at last.

There are also a number of companies developing new launch vehicles for satellites of all weight classes. There are a lot of different efforts underway aimed at providing affordable launches for small-, cube-, nano- and micro-sats. If they are successful, the days of building a satellite quickly and then waiting months or years to launch it will become a thing of the past.

In terms of larger payloads, SpaceX plans to increase its launch rate beginning this year as it continues to delivery cargo to the International Space Station and begins to work through an ever growing manifest of commercial and government satellites. SpaceX is, at present, the only domestic rocket company capable of competing for international launch contracts.

Orbital Sciences Corporation will follow SpaceX in demonstrating the ability to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and then a begin a series of  eight commercial resupply missions that will add to America’s launch total. The company is also marketing Antares commercially.

Getting Americans back into space on our own vehicles is going to take a little bit longer. Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX are all working on transports under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The earliest any of them will make test flights with a crew aboard is 2015.  Commercial service is not expected to begin before 2017.

If NASA succeeds in playing midwife to a commercially competitive orbital transportation industry, that will open the door to what could be a real game changer:  Bigelow Aerospace’s private space stations.  A pair of those facilities operating in orbit successfully by the end of the decade would generate dozens of launches per year.  The annual launch rates would dwarf anything we’ve seen to date.

At that point, the country would probably end up being short of spaceports and launch facilities. But, that would be a nice change of pace.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday, targeted RSC Energia, a company partially owned by the Russian government, and two Ukrainian state-owned companies, PO Yuzhnoye Mashinostroitelny Zavod and KB Yuzhnoye.

Boeing said it partnered with the companies, as well as Norway’s Kvaerner Moss Technology, in 1995 to create Sea Launch, which focuses on launching commercial satellites into space.

The U.S. aerospace company said it provided substantial funding for the venture, and the partners agreed that, if it failed, they would reimburse Boeing their share of the funding.

Sea Launch emerged from bankruptcy in 2010. As part of the plan of reorganization, a subsidiary of RSC Energia increased its ownership to 95 percent from 25 percent, the lawsuit said. Boeing and Kvaerner, now called Aker Maritime Finance AS, split the remaining 5 percent….

Boeing said in its new lawsuit that RSC Energia owed at least $222.3 million and the Yuzhnoye companies owed at least $133.4 million.

Coincidentally, the suit was filed the day after a Sea Launch rocket dumped the Boeing-built Intelsat 27 satellite into the ocean in a failed launch attempt.

Read the full story.

UPDATE: The lawsuit will add to the problems of what appears to be an already troubled Sea Launch company. Anatoly Zak at RussianSpaceWeb.com has a summary of recent Russian media coverage of the company. Some of key points:

• Sea Launch lost $100 million in 2011 in its first year launching after bankruptcy;
• The company is having difficulty attracting the four launches per year required to break even;
• Even before last week’s launch accident, RSC Energia asked the Russian government to take over Sea Launch and shift some federal launches to it, a proposal the government has not yet answered;
• As an alternative, RSC Energia is considering selling the venture to a foreign entity located in Ukraine, United States, China and Australia.

So, it appears that Sea Launch might have some difficulty surviving. It is just one rocket company with two or three launches per year. The major impact of the company going out of business would likely be felt in Ukraine.

However, here’s the really scary part:

In the effort to cut costs, RKK Energia wrestled control over NPO Energomash producing RD-170/171 engines, which power the first stage of the Zenit rocket. As a result, it was able to force NPO Energomash to reduce the price for each engine from $16 to $10 million, bringing the legendary propulsion company toward the brink of bankruptcy. RKK Energia’s own debt was also continuing mounting and according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta had essentially been a disguised bankruptcy for several years.

NPO Energomash being pushed to the brink of insolvency is very bad. The company makes a range of engines for different launch vehicles, including the RD-180 used in United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V. That rocket is crucial for U.S. national security, and for NASA’s commercial crew program.

Meanwhile, Energia might already be essentially bankrupt. That company is so crucial to Russia’s space efforts, especially in terms of maintaining and supplying the International Space Station. And now its being sued for more than $200 million by Boeing.

All of this information provides a new perspective on the Russian government’s efforts to streamline and consolidate the nation’s space effort. If Energia and Energomash can’t make money under the current setup, then something is seriously wrong. The interesting question is whether consolidating the industry under the control of the government — as has been proposed — will save the industry or accelerate its decline.

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.

Bigelow has selected SpaceX and Boeing as its transportation providers. SpaceX is selling seats on its seven-seat Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for $26.25 million, or $183.75 million per vehicle. A seat on Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft, launched by the Atlas V, will cost $36.75 million, or $257.25 million for all seven places.

“In stark contrast to the short stays of a week or so aboard the ISS that we have seen wealthy individuals pay as much as $40 million for, astronauts visiting the Bigelow station will enjoy 10 – 60 days in orbit,” the company says on its website.

“During this time, visiting astronauts will be granted access to the Alpha Station’s shared research facilities. Examples of available equipment include a centrifuge, glove-box, microscope, furnace, and freezer. Also, potential clients should note that as opposed to the ISS, where astronauts dedicate the lion’s share of  their time to supporting station operations and maintenance, astronauts aboard the Alpha Station will be able to focus exclusively on their own experiments and activities, ensuring that both nations and companies can gain full value from their investment in a human spaceflight program.”

Bigelow is also offering clients the opportunity to lease 110 cubic meter blocks of the space station for 60 days at a cost of $25 million. The blocks will be roughly the same volume as a module on the International Space Station.

“This unprecedented amount of volume will allow clients to utilize a significant portion of a space station for their own uninterrupted work and use to fly experiments or other payloads,” the company says. “For example, if a client chose to fill a single lease block with 50 or more experiments, the flight cost of sending an individual experiment to the Alpha Station would only be $500,000 or less for two months.

“Per the information above, utilizing a Falcon 9 and Dragon, for only $51.25 million, a client can travel to the Alpha Station for two months and enjoy dominion over 110 cubic meters of volume for 60 days,” according to the company. “Additionally, Alpha Station clientele will be allowed to sublease their on-orbit volume or resell purchased astronaut seats. This flexibility will provide clients with the opportunity to reduce their own costs or even make a profit.”

Bigelow is also offering naming rights for the station at $12.5 million for 6 months and $25 million for the year. Clients also can name an entire BA 330 module for a year at a cost of $12.5 million.

The company is targeting both sovereign nations as well as commercial companies around the world.

“Nations such as Japan, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden could secure the future of their human spaceflight programs and dramatically increase the size of their astronaut corps,” the company’s website states. “Smaller countries with no human spaceflight experience such as Singapore or the United Arab Emirates could take their first bold steps into space in a rapid and affordable fashion….

“These commercial stations will also present unique opportunities for corporations to gain significant advantages over their competition,” the company says. “The microgravity environment represents a completely new arena for commercial R&D. Already, work aboard the ISS is leading to the development of innovative vaccines for diseases such as Salmonella, and we’re only beginning to scratch the surface relative to what regular, robust, and affordable access to the microgravity environment will mean to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.”

By Bob Granath
NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center

On Jan. 22, NASA took a crucial next step toward launching astronauts to the International Space Station from the United States. Beginning the first phase of the Commercial Crew Program’s (CCP) certification efforts, three companies now are conducting activities that will confirm commercial spacecraft are safe to carry crews to the station.

This landmark comes as the agency celebrates the 45th anniversary of an essential stage in sending Americans to the moon.

Launched Jan. 22, 1968, Apollo 5 was the first unpiloted flight of an Apollo lunar module successfully flown from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, establishing the module’s ability to perform as designed. The mission also helped certify that the spacecraft could safely fly with astronauts on its next mission.

Similarly, through May 30, 2014, three companies are working under contract with CCP to develop products to implement the agency’s flight safety and performance standards and requirements. The Certification Products Contracts (CPC) will establish standards across all aspects of commercial crew systems, including design of the spacecraft, launch vehicles, and ground and mission operations.

As the first human spaceflight development program based at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, CCP will provide the U.S. its own transportation capabilities to the International Space Station.

“Throughout the phases of this program, we’ve really been creating a capability for the nation to use for low-Earth orbit transportation,” said Ed Mango, CCP manager at Kennedy. “As we create that capability, then NASA will become a customer so that we can move our flight crew to the International Space Station and continue our critical science.”

The CPC contractors are The Boeing Company of Houston developing the CST-100 spacecraft that will launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket; Sierra Nevada Corp. Space System of Louisville, Colo., building the Dream Chaser also set to launch on an Atlas V; and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., maturing its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket for crewed missions.

Under the contract’s certification plan, resulting data will aid in developing engineering standards, as well as needed tests and analyses of crew transportation system designs. The second phase of certification efforts, expected to begin in mid-2014, will involve a full and open competition. It will include the final development, testing and verification processes necessary to allow piloted demonstration flights to the space station.

NASA is facilitating the development of U.S. commercial crew space transportation capabilities with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from low-Earth orbit for potential government and commercial customers.

Like the goals of CPC, a key objective of Apollo 5 was to ensure the vehicle would fly safely. Mission objectives included verifying that both the lunar module’s ascent and descent engines would ignite as planned and evaluating the strength of the spacecraft’s overall structure.

The engine that would be used to land on the moon was fired several times. Then, the ascent engine was ignited successfully simulating an abort during the landing phase. This involved the ascent propulsion system being started simultaneously with the descent engine being shut down.

At the time, Maj. Gen. Samuel Philips, director of the Apollo Program Office, said that the lunar module’s maiden flight completed testing of the last major piece of Apollo flight hardware. All other Apollo hardware elements had been tested throughout the previous two years.

Between late 1968 and the end of 1972, 11 piloted Apollo missions were flown, nine going to the moon, six of which landed on the lunar surface.

Running concurrently with CPC is the agency’s CCiCap initiative, short for Commercial Crew Integrated Capability. During CCiCap, SpaceX is planning for a pad abort test and in-flight abort test, SNC will begin its flight test phase, and Boeing, working with its subcontractor ULA, will check the compatibility between their spacecraft and launch vehicle. All of these milestones could be used by NASA in the future to validate the commercial systems are safe for crews, much like the Apollo 5 mission did 45 years ago.

While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop commercial crew capabilities to transport American astronauts to the space station in low-Earth orbit, work also is ongoing for NASA’s first spacecraft to travel beyond the moon.

“We have a complementary, dual strategy at NASA,” said Phil McAlister, director of NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Development at Headquarters in Washington. “We’re letting the private sector take a little bit more responsibility for low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station cargo re-supply and crew transportation while NASA retains its more traditional role in the deep space exploration part.”