Gerstenmaier Sees High Interest, Many Bids For NASA Space Transport Vehicle Work To Be Awarded In June; Competition May Be Intense

NASA Moving To Fill Void Created By Shuttles Retiring; After That, Will The Space Station Be Junked In 2016?

NASA, with only two years before its space transportation capabilities disappear for half a decade, is moving to obtain alternate means of taking American astronauts into orbit, giving Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, a cargo-carrying contract worth up to $1 billion and gearing up for more contract awards in a few weeks.

NASA is expecting major interest and multiple proposals by June from companies interested in supplying transport services, such as hauling cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) in the next decade, according to a top-ranked NASA official.

The space agency also is pressing Congress to move post haste to pass legislation that would permit hiring the Russians to provide space transport services that NASA soon won’t be able to supply itself. Clearly, NASA leaders haven’t lost confidence in the Russian spaceship, Soyuz, despite a still-unidentified problem that has caused two consecutive rough Soyuz landings on Earth. (Please see separate story in this issue.)

Although the United States is the leader and major financier of the International Space Station, the nation that once sent men to the moon won’t be able to send even one astronaut to that orbiting outpost, from the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in October 2010 until the first manned flight of the next-generation Orion-Ares space system in 2015, and full operational capability in 2016.

Although NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has termed this loss of the U.S. space transport program "unseemly," he also said the regrettable decision to shut down NASA space transport capabilities can’t be undone, and it’s time to suck it up and face reality.

Some members of Congress have expressed deep regret that all the money that NASA will spend in buying space transport services from the Russians and others could have been spent in bringing Orion-Ares to reality years sooner.

SpaceX Pact

NASA last week gave SpaceX a contract that potentially could be in the billion-dollar class to use SpaceX Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets to transport cargo into space.

How much money SpaceX would receive would depend on how many launches NASA wishes to buy.

The NASA launch services contracts are multiple awards to multiple launch service providers. Twice per year, there is an opportunity for existing and emerging domestic launch service providers to submit proposals if their vehicles meet the minimum contract requirements.

The SpaceX contract is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract where NASA may order launch services through June 30, 2010, for launches to occur through December 2012.

Under the NASA contracts, the potential total contract value is between $20,000 and $1 billion, depending on the number of missions awarded.

The contract seeks a launch capability for payloads weighing 551 pounds or heavier into a circular orbit of 124 miles at an orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees. Payloads would be launched to support three NASA mission directorates: Science, Space Operations and Exploration Systems.

Because an IDIQ contract has been awarded to SpaceX, it can compete for NASA missions using the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.

The NASA Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center is responsible for program management. This award to SpaceX adds to the stable of launch vehicles available to NASA under previously awarded contracts.

The original request for proposal was issued in 1999.

More Commercial Space Orders

NASA also is poised to receive multiple competitive proposals from companies seeking to provide space transportation services to the agency, according to William H. Gerstenmaier, associate NASA administrator for space operations.

Responding to a question from Space & Missile Defense Report, Gerstenmaier said he expects many companies to vie for the chance to supply transport services.

"We’re hoping to get a good competition from that" request for proposals, Gerstenmaier said. "We’ll know in June how many companies decide to propose for that, and we’ll see what we get back. We’re looking for a variety of concepts, and various teams."

He didn’t say just which firms he expects will submit bids, but it will be a free-wheeling, fair fight to provide the services.

"It’s an open commercial procurement, and we’ll see what we get," he said. "We’re optimistic we’re going to get a lot of good response to that request for proposals."

But those commercial space efforts are just in development now, and must prove themselves.

Further, until they prove their reliability, they likely will be confined for years to providing cargo transport on logistics missions to the space station.

Meanwhile, the United States will have to rely on major nations such as Russia to provide crew transport services.

Russia Needed

Gerstenmaier told Congress that time is running short to pass legislation required if NASA is to be able to purchase transportation services from Russia, so the United States can continue to operate the space station.

He spoke before a hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee space and aeronautics subcommittee.

"We really need that relief now" from strictures of existing law effectively limiting purchase of items from Russia, Gerstenmaier said. "We need that relief this summer," so that NASA can negotiate a contract for Russian transport services in the next decade, which would be the critical link permitting the United States to continue sending its astronauts to operate portions of the space station.

Gerstenmaier said later that the legislation also would provide exemption coverage to Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB] and other firms using Russian parts in their hardware.

While some lawmakers decry U.S. dependence on the Russians here, given THE at times harsh Russian criticisms and opposition TO U.S. initiatives such as missile defense for Europe, Gerstenmaier said that Russians often have supplied excellent cooperation in the space program.

"We’ve really come together," he said, noting that Russia supplied indispensable Soyuz space vehicle transport services when the U.S. space shuttle fleet abruptly was grounded following the tragic loss of Space Shuttle Columbia.

The Russians then rose to the occasion, and "kept the space station viable," Gerstenmaier said.

To continue operating the station when the space shuttle fleet is grounded permanently in two years, "they need our crew" to operate some portions of the space station, he said.

Thus Russia is ready to provide Soyuz spaceships to transport American astronauts to the station, "but they are going to want compensation" for that, Gerstenmaier said. He didn’t provide any estimate as to just how much Congress is going to have to appropriate for that service.

As for cargo, the Russians may be able to haul limited amounts to space in Progress unmanned freighter spaceships, and the European Space Agency even now has its unmanned drone freighter, the Automated Transport Vehicle (ATV), docked to the space station.

The ATV, in a routine correction maneuver, also was able to move the space station up to a higher orbit.

Space Station Retirement

While the space station officially doesn’t exist after 2016, many hope it will gain an extended life far past that date.

Subcommittee members expressed amazement that there is any thought of ending the space station life, before construction oF the orbiting outpost has even been completed.

Gerstenmaier said later that now, eight years before that 2016 deadline, is the time to begin planning how the space station would continue to be used, and how its continued operation would be justified.

"I think this is a critical time to be doing the planning for research on board space station," he said. "We’re almost to where station is complete. Now is the time to lay in plans for that research. We’ve done nothing to preclude flying beyond 2016, but in those same plans we should talk about what criteria we need … to fly beyond 2016 and let the next administration decide what we want to do [at] the station."

That referred to the next president, who will be elected in November and enter the White House in January.

"We want to utilize the research" from the station, Gerstenmaier said, "just like we built the plans for assembly [of the station] many years ago. We’re actually getting them now … We need to be doing the same kind of thing for our research."

In other words, to attempt to justify continued space station operations, one must show just what worthwhile work might be done there.

"I mean, I think we need to at least put in the framework for that [2016] decision," Gerstenmaier said. "What data do we need. What results do we want to see to drive us to continue. … Go through the thought process. This is the basic planning time."

A Government Accountability Office report said the current three-person crews on the station are able to perform but a few hours of science work each week.

But that output is poised to increase, Gerstenmaier said. "Next year, we plan on being able to increase the [space station] crew size to six. We’ll do that in the May-June timeframe of next year. That will give us more crew time. We recognize the shortfall in crew time, so a lot of the research done on station is now done autonomously from the ground. … So we’ve been able to accommodate a lot of the research" even though crew time is limited. "The research time – There will more research time available when we increase the crew size. You just have to factor that … as a constraint. But the researchers have done that already, with a lot of autonomous operation in their equipment."

Another issue is whether the space shuttle fleet will be able to complete the space station construction, and perform other work, before shuttles cease flying in two years. (Please see separate story.)

Some items that earlier were slated to go to the space station won’t get off the ground, for lack of cargo space on the space shuttles.

But Gerstenmaier said perhaps some items that currently are too large to be transported aloft on other, commercial orbital transport vehicles might be taken to orbit if those items could be broken down into smaller pieces.

"The most effective way to fly those large [items] are on the shuttle," he explained. "But if you absolutely had to, you could figure out a way to do it.

"We’ve also looked at inventive ways that we could redesign the hardware. So, for example, the large wheel we have for the control moment gyros, we could break that into three or four smaller wheels that might be able to then fit on a COTS vehicle. So, again, we wouldn’t fly that particular component, but we could gain the functionality of it with a different packaging that allowed it to fly on the expendable vehicle."