When President Bush unveiled his Vision for Space Exploration in early 2004, he declared that the United States would return to the moon, with a series of robotic missions paving the way for future human exploration by 2020. Not all of these planned lunar projects will make it off the drawing board, but private companies will play a key role in NASA’s plans, and tangible returns on investment might materialize more quickly than expected.
“New human spaceflight development of this magnitude, such as the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, occurs once in a generation. The next five years are a critical period in our nation’s space flight efforts,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin testified in March 2007 before the House Committee on Science and Technology on the status of NASA’s human exploration programs.
When it comes to NASA’s emerging plans for human exploration of space, the future is full of promise for commercial space companies, according to the Coalition for Space Exploration, a collection of space companies and advocacy groups which supports the Vision of Space Exploration. “The exploration of space will undoubtedly provide opportunities for the commercial space sector as human outposts are established on the moon and people ultimately venture on to Mars and other destinations,” says Joe Mayer, chair of the Coalition’s public affairs team and a Houston-based manager for business development for Boeing Co. “Commercial space will develop, as it has in the past, as market conditions warrant and as government funding constraints drive a push to secure the most cost-effective space products and services available.”
Multiple Business Opportunities
Project Constellation, the name for NASA’s plans to develop the technology needed to return to the moon, consists of the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) demonstration program to resupply the International Space Station, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its accompanying Crew Launch Vehicle known as Ares 1 and the heavy-lift Ares 5 rocket for carrying lunar infrastructure and supplies.
Orion consists of a crew module for astronauts and cargo, a service module that provides propulsion and electrical power, a spacecraft adapter that bonds Orion to the launch vehicle and a launch abort system designed to carry Orion and its crew away from a rocket in the event of an emergency.
Lockheed Martin Corp. was awarded the prime contract for the program in August 2006, but in April, NASA rolled back the delivery date of the first Orion space capsule from 2011 to late 2013, adding $385 million to Orion’s total cost. Its first flight with astronauts is scheduled to take place in 2015.
“Orion will develop the capability for long-term stays on the moon in preparation for future exploration of Mars,” says Wayne Dixon, Orion program manager at Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace, an Orion subcontractor. “While the Apollo program had an astronaut remain in the command module during lunar landing, Orion will not. The Orion vehicle will have to be capable of operating without a human pilot and support docking of the lunar module upon return.”
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