Orion spaceship prime contractor Lockheed Martin, its Ares I launcher’s first stage provider Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and engine developer Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne have teamed to compete to supply the crew vehicle booster’s upper stage.

ATK – already responsible for the Ares I first stage hardware including the interface and separation with the upper stage – is leading the team. The upper stage production contract request for proposals is expected in February next year and should be placed in the third quarter.

For the upper stage bid Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is responsible for the liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen J-2x engine and related upper stage interfaces. Lockheed is providing the avionics for the April 2009 Ares I-1 test flight and has the capability to produce the upper stage cryogenic tanks.

On 12 September NASA published its $2 million Ares I upper stage severance system contract synopsis. With a draft request for proposal (RFP) expected around 19 September and an industry briefing on 21 September the final RFP should be published by NASA Glenn Research Center in mid-October.

NASA internal planning, official’s comments and contractor expectations suggest the much touted goal of manned flights of new crew vehicle Orion before 2014 are unrealistic

NASA will fail to meet its goal of flying manned Orion missions before 2014, as the first delay emerges for the new spaceship’s development timetable just a week after its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, was selected.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin had wanted Orion’s development accelerated because the four-year gap between the Space Shuttle’s 2010 retirement and the new spacecraft’s planned 2014 operational debut was deemed unacceptable. The prime contractor selection process was even adjusted for changes introduced by NASA to accelerate Orion.

However NASA internal planning documents obtained by Flight International, and recent comments by Constellation and Lockheed Martin programme officials, reveal that this goal is unrealistic.

In an interview with Flight International last week, Lockheed Project Orion business development manager Patrick McKenzie said that the “requirements review (SRR) should slip into the first quarter of next year”. NASA’s plan had been for Orion’s SRR to occur in the fourth quarter of 2006.

While McKenzie was sure his company could deliver the Orion for a 2012 manned flight, at the 31 August contractor selection announcement Project Orion office manager Caris Hatfeld said “a full and final” Ares I test was unlikely before 2012 in order to complete the launcher’s upper stage and its Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne J-2X engine. That 2012 test flight will not be manned.

The leaked documents and corroborating NASA sources describe a timetable where the Ares I-1 test would occur in 2009, followed by the 2012 flight, which is now designated the Orbital Flight Test (OFT)-1. NASA had spoken of Atmospheric Demonstration Flight Tests (ADFT), but this designation seems to have been abandoned. The first manned flight is OFT-3, which is planned for April, May or June 2014.

When asked about Hatfield’s and Constellation programme manager Jeffrey Hanley’s ambiguous 31 August comments about testing, NASA said: “The test programme is still in review, which is why [Hatfield and Hanley] were circumspect. We need to see how the new prime contractor’s detailed schedule fits with rest of the programme test plan.”

The leaked NASA documents have the system design review, which follows SRR, by May 2007 the preliminary design review by March 2008, and the critical design review in the second quarter of 2009.

Officials at Lockheed Martin say the Orion crew vehicle, NASA’s Moon-bound successor to the space shuttle, will combine retro-1960s and cutting-edge aerospace technologies.

The Apollo program, which sent a dozen men to the Moon, ended in 1972. It’s so long ago that fewer than half of all Americans are old enough to have watched one of its missions on live TV. Yet some of the technology behind Apollo is about to be brought out of retirement for NASA’s return to the Moon, scheduled for 2020.

The agency’s new system for traveling to Earth orbit, and later to the Moon and Mars, dubbed The Constellation Program, essentially duplicates the Moon mission technologies proposed by Wernher von Braun in the late 1950s and used in the Apollo program. For instance, it includes a multistage rocket similar to Apollo’s Saturn V, a crew vehicle similar to the Apollo command module, and a lunar lander directly based on the Apollo lander.

Last month, NASA chose aerospace giant Lockheed Martin to build the crew vehicle, called Orion. The craft’s cone-shaped crew module and cylindrical service module might have just arrived from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum–except they’re a bit larger than the Apollo versions, carrying four to six crew members instead of three.

Yet, according to Lockheed Martin officials, Orion will make the Apollo craft look like a Model T. Orion’s reentry system, for example, will incorporate knowledge gleaned from Lockheed’s recent Genesis and Stardust missions, which retrieved materials from comets. What’s more, the avionics software and equipment will be based on systems used in the newest passenger jets; and a new abort system will carry astronauts away from the main rockets in case of a Challenger-like launch disaster.

Patrick McKenzie is business development manager for the Orion project at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, CO. He talked with Technology Review on September 7 about the technologies–old and new–going into Orion.

Technology Review: What did aerospace engineers learn from Apollo that can be applied in the Orion project? And why does your design look so similar, at least superficially, to the Apollo command module and service module?

Patrick McKenzie: One of the most enduring things that Apollo got right was the aerodynamic shape of the capsule–which also happens to be the most visible element. One of the reasons NASA chose to go with the Apollo-type shape is the proven safety database that goes along with that. When you look at alternatives like lifting-body designs–space airplanes like the Shuttle–they provide things like additional cross-range [the ability to steer to different landing sites], but you are not able to fly them safely in the event that a control system goes offline. A ballistic reentry system like a capsule can return the crew safely in the event of a fault. But virtually everything else about this capsule is new technology–not necessarily bleeding-edge, but developed after Apollo.

TR: What are some of the most important new technologies, in your opinion?

PM: One of the major technology applications that is clearly going to be different with Orion is the automated rendezvous and docking capability. Orion will need to dock with the International Space Station and with the Earth Departure Stage [the rocket that will accelerate Orion out of Earth orbit to the Moon]. The Shuttle is manually docked, and Apollo obviously wasn’t automated. Orion will have manual override capability, but the vast majority of the time, there should be no need for a crew member to intervene.

TR: I understand that Orion will have a new type of heat shield for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

PM: The idea is pretty much the same as with Apollo, but there will be a new design and new materials that provide more robust protection. That’s important because with vehicles coming back from the Moon, or particularly from Mars, the reentry velocities are going to be a lot higher [than with spacecraft in low-Earth orbit]. We are looking at heat-shield materials like PICA [phenolic impregnated carbon ablator] and SLA [a cork-based ablative material] that Lockheed has proven on the Genesis and Stardust deep-space sample return missions.

Another thing that’s going to be new is “skip reentry,” which we are going to be doing routinely. That’s where you bounce off the atmosphere and come back in again, which gives you the ability to touch down on land, as opposed to the Apollo landings in the ocean. That provides an extra measure of safety and enhances the reusability of the system. Of course, we’re also looking at upgraded landing-impact systems. You still come down on parachutes, like Apollo did, then you deploy airbags or fire retrorockets, similar to what the Russian Soyuz vehicle does, to slow down the vehicle for a safe landing.

TR: What will conditions be like inside the crew module?

PM: Apollo could carry only three people, and they had very tight living conditions. The Orion crew module will have twice the volume: 361 cubic feet per crew member. Four crew can go back and forth to the Moon, and on flights to the International Space Station we could accommodate up to six crew. Also, the crew module will be able to stay in orbit around the Moon in a fully autonomous mode, so all four crew members could go down to the surface, for potentially long-duration stays.

TR: For Apollo, NASA designed an abort system to carry the command module away from the Saturn V rocket in the event of a launch emergency. Such an abort system might have saved the Challenger astronauts, but unfortunately the Space Shuttle doesn’t have one. What’s being planned for Orion?

PM: It’s the same kind of idea as with Apollo. One of the particular advantages of the capsule configuration over the Space Shuttle is the fact that we aren’t side-mounted. On the Shuttle, both the solid rocket boosters and the external fuel tank are right up against the belly of the vehicle, and there is no way to separate the crew from those in an emergency. Orion will sit on top of the Ares I launch vehicle in the same fashion as Apollo, so that if there’s any kind of issue with the rocket below, the advanced launch abort rockets on the tower above the crew module are fully capable of accelerating away from the Ares and getting the crew into a safe situation, with parachutes for landing.

TR: The old mechanical cockpit systems in the Space Shuttle were recently replaced with a modern “glass cockpit” design, with fully electronic displays and controls. I assume that technology will go into Orion as well?

PM: The avionics systems on board are going to be light-years ahead of where Apollo was. Not only will we have what you called the glass cockpit, but the other key element is “dual fault tolerance.” That means that with the critical systems being built into Orion, you could have two failures in the same system and still fly safely. The system that our teammate Honeywell is working on is based on the avionics architecture of the Boeing 787, which is also dual-fault tolerant. The systems constantly monitor one another, and if one system has a problem, another one automatically takes over. It adds some additional weight and complexity to the vehicle, but it provides a much greater margin of safety on these very dangerous space missions.

TR: The Space Shuttle is due to be retired in 2010, and the first crewed test flights for the Constellation Program–or at least the Ares rocket with Orion on top–are planned for 2014. What will be the hardest technology challenges as you try to hold to that schedule?

PM: Typically, the avionics software development ends up being a critical path element. The RCS engines, derivatives of the Shuttle’s RCS engines, are another [Reaction Control System–the small side-mounted rockets used for attitude control and steering. The Shuttle’s RCS engines were themselves derived from Apollo. -eds.] So it comes down to software and propulsion. We’re aware of those critical-path issues and working with NASA to address them early. We’d like to close the gap after the Shuttle’s retirement and skinny the schedule down to test launches in 2012 or even sooner. But the Ares I launch vehicle development process has to come together along with Orion.

TR: From President Kennedy’s May 1961 speech announcing the goal of landing on the Moon to the actual Apollo 11 landing in July 1969, a little more than eight years passed. Today NASA says it’s going to take at least 14 years to do the same thing. Why?

PM: The Orion part of the project would probably be capable of lunar missions sooner than 2020. That being said, you’re also going to need to develop a lunar lander, an Earth-departure stage, and a lift vehicle [the Ares I and Ares V]. Because NASA’s budget in this day and age is a much smaller percentage of the budget of the nation than it was in the Apollo era, we have to “go as you can pay,” as NASA administrator [Michael] Griffin puts it. The initial budget priority is on developing Ares I and Orion. We will not be able to do development on the lunar lander, the EDS, and all the elements of Ares V in parallel.

TR: Why do you think Lockheed Martin’s proposal for the Orion contract won out over Northrop Grumman’s? Was Lockheed offering superior technology?

PM: I’m extremely proud of the team and what they accomplished with the technical concept we delivered to NASA. But the requirements are still in the process of changing, and all of the bidders actually had to deal with a diameter change [in the Orion capsule] halfway through the process, from 5.5 meters down to 5 meters. With NASA delivering so many things to us as requirements, the playing field was leveled somewhat.

When it gets right down to it, NASA is signing up for a relationship with an industrial partner that’s going to last a couple of decades. They wanted to know that it would be a happy marriage, where the spirit of partnership was in real evidence. During Phase I [when NASA paid several bidders to develop designs for Orion], we took the initiative to make sure our project office was co-located in Houston, which made it easy for them to participate in all of our control board meetings and other important events over and above the typical bimonthly reviews. We’ve got a significant workforce at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans [where the Shuttle’s external tanks are put together]; we made a decision early on to do final assembly and checkout at Kennedy Space Center; we’re going to be doing engine testing at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi [NASA’s primary rocket propulsion test site]. I think NASA has appreciated that.

From Radio Iowa:  NASA’s unveiled plans for its new space vehicle, called Orion, and an Iowa-born astronaut says he’s itching to be first in line to fly it. Burlington native Jim Kelly has logged more than 38-hundred flight hours in 35 types of aircraft, including piloting the space shuttle Discovery — twice.

The 41-year-old Kelly is speaking at several eastern Iowa schools this week and will escort his mother to her 50th class reunion at Muscatine High.

Shares of Lockheed Martin Corp Friday climbed on news of a consortium led by the defense contracting giant having won a contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The contract to design, develop and build the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, the human spacecraft aimed at replacing the space shuttle. The contract won by the consortium, which also includes Honeywell International Inc and Orbital Sciences Corp, is expected to last through 2013, is estimated to be valued at almost $4 billion. The group led by Lockheed Martin beat a joint bid from The Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman to win the NASA contract. Lockheed Martin’s share price rose $1.06, or 1.28%, to $83.66 at 2:57pm ET on the NYSE on Friday.

Marshall Space Flight Center’s Danny Davis, manager of the Upper Stage of the new Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle, has given a fascinating inside overview of the vehicle that will transport Lockheed Martin’s Orion.

Question: Could you please give us an outline of your role?

Davis: I manage the Ares I Upper Stage Element Office. The Upper Stage is an integral part of the Ares I launch vehicle that provides the second stage of flight for delivery of the Orion vehicle to low earth orbit.

My office is responsible for development of the stage requirements, stage design, verification of the design, fabrication and assembly, and support to operations at KSC. My role is to staff the management team that oversees all facets of the development process. As a team, we arrange for the appropriate engineering work force and budget to get the job done. We continually conduct assessment of the technical progress and risk management, and provide feedback to the ELO project office.

Question: What are your responsibilities?

Davis: I manage the NASA Design Team that is responsible for design of the stage. I develop the required budget and schedule to complete the project, determine risk to our success and report progress and issues to the ELO management. I am responsible for completing the mission within budget and on schedule. I am also responsible for the acquisition strategy to be used to purchase the need resources and products for the mission.

Question: What group(s) of people do you manage?

Davis: I manage the Element Office staff that sets the policy and plans for US development. I have a partnership with NASA Engineering at MSFC and other centers. The NASA Design Team is comprised of NASA engineering resources at NASA several Centers including their in-house support contractors. The NASA Design Team is formed into Integrated Product Teams that are allocated full responsibility for development of their specific subsystems. An example is the team we have established for Avionics and Software. The Avionics and Software IPT is responsible for developing all detailed avionics requirements, hardware and software design, testing and procurements and mission support to the flight systems.

We also plan to incorporate the Production Contractor in the IPTs early in the development process to ensure the NASA design is easy to manufacture and operate and to ultimately fabricate, check out and deliver the flight hardware. We plan on issuing a competitive RFP in early 2007 for our upperstage production partner and later in the year for our instrument unit production partner.

Question: Who do you report to?

Davis: I report to the Exploration Project Office at MSFC, directed by Steve Cook. ELO is part of the Constellation Program.

Question: What program(s) have you previously been involved with, and what was your area of responsibility in those?

Davis: I managed the RS-84 Prototype Engine Project where I had project management responsibilities similar to my current position. I have managed the Fastrac Engine project which was an in-house development of a 60K thrust LOX – RP-1 engine. These and other development experiences have provide valuable lesson learned for my current assignment.

Ares I Overview

Question: Can you please outline the current status of the overall Ares I development project?

Davis: The Ares I is working toward kicking off its systems requirements review in late October, 2006 – this will result in a set of validated requirements for the Ares I vehicle to which we will begin the preliminary design. The team was stood up in October, 2005 and has made remarkable progress which includes the following:

– NASA team is up and running at several centers, including MSFC, GRC, LaRC, ARC, KSC, SSC and JSC

– Completion of a 1st, full up design analysis cycle on all elements and the stack

– Completion of over 1,400 wind tunnel test runs along with corresponding CFD analyses – including detailed models with protuberances, such as systems tunnels

– Completion of an initial control systems design and validation using 6 DOF dispersed simulations

– Development of a launch availability discrete event simulation – to help drive out costs and increase operability

– Selection of ATK – Launch Systems as the 1st stage partner

– Successful design and initial test of the new 1st stage pilot parachute at the Yuma Proving Ground

– Baselining a common thrust trace for the Ares I 1st stage which will be also used for the Areas V

– Fabrication of new 1st stage nozzle hardware

– Fabrication of the new 1st stage forward section mockup

– Selection of Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne as the upperstage engine partner

– Performance Risk Reduction Testing Initiated on the 40K injector rig for the J-2X engine

– Completion of the J-2X engine preliminary requirements review

– Demonstration of friction stir welding techniques applicable to circumferential welds on the upperstage

– Completion of an initial manufacturing and logistics approach for the upperstage

– Held an open house at the Michoud Assembly Facility to start to educate industry on the capabilities of this facility which will be used for upperstage assembly

– Initiation of the Ares I-1 flight test. This will fly in 2009 and will inform the Ares I design in areas such as 1st stage flight dynamics, roll control, stage separation and stage recovery using new chutes and forward structures and vehicle operations processing at KSC

Question: What are the expected/target performance figures you are working towards achieving with the Ares I?

Davis: Our current requirement is to deliver the Orion to a -30×100 nmi injection orbit (at either 28.5 or 51.6? inc). The performance capability is approximately 55klbm.

The Upper Stage

Question: Can you give us an idea of where you are in the current status of the Upper Stage (U/S) development program?

*************************************************

Mar 2006 DAC-1a – Design Analysis Cycle 1a

Jun 2006 DAC-1b

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Sep 2006 DAC-1c

Jan 2007 SRR – System Requirement Review

Mar 2007 DAC-2

Jun 2007 Contractor Selection

Sep 2007 SDR – System Definition Review

Dec 2007 DAC-3

Mar 2008 PDR – Preliminary Design Review

Jun 2008 DAC-4

Sep 2008 CDR – Critical Design Review

Dec 2008 DAC-5

Mar 2009 DCR – Design Certification Review

************************************************

Davis: Our first priority is to develop requirements for the US design. Our System Requirements Review is scheduled for January 2007. This review approves all the requirements allocated to our stage and the flow-down requirements allocated to each subsystem IPT. To support requirement development we use conceptual designs of the US to show the feasibility of the requirements allocated.

This phase is going well. We have completed the initial Design and Analysis Cycle (DAC) and are confident that the US can meet all the current allocated requirements. We will use the current DAC to fine tune our approach. We have also initiated early development activities for selected long-lead components such as MPS Pre-valve, RCS Thrusters, and selected structural components. Our next step is to test the early develop test components to anchor the design and analysis models.

We have also initiated reliability, maintainability, availability and cost modeling that will be used by the design team to optimize the design – including cost as well as safety and performance.

The other design review dates are still under review, but these dates are reasonable approximations.

Question: Do you have a current specification of the Upper Stage as it stands today in this relatively early phase of the development program?

Davis: We have top level requirements that were based on validated conceptual design models. These have been found to be accurate for early allocation of requirements. Our engineering team is developing more rigorous design and analysis to support trade studies that optimize the US and the Ares I stack. Currently, US is confident we can meet allocated requirements. Allocations may change to optimize for low recurring cost and operability.

Question: Can you describe what are the next major elements of the development program which need to be tackled and give us an idea of where they fit in the above schedule?

Davis: We will continue to validate the feasibility of the allocated requirements and optimize the vehicle. Good requirements are critical to establish before detailed design begins. We will pursue limited advanced development projects to support the critical design phase with test data and analysis.

Question From NASASpaceflight.com member ‘Ed Kyle’: What, in your mind, is the long-pole of the tent, the toughest challenge, for both the U/S development, and also the overall Ares I development effort?

Davis: US intends to use Friction Stir Welding of Aluminum Lithium alloys for all major structures. We are working on welding dome gores and close-outs of circumferential welds. Early lab scale experiments have been very successful but the full scale hardware is the real proof. We are planning the fabrication and test of full scale components to support preliminary and critical design.

Other issues include ensuring the operability and low cost of our design. We are engaging the operators and industry partners early in the process to make sure we understand all lessons learned from Space Shuttle and recent expendable launch system developments. We have to optimize all feature of the Ares I vehicle to derive the best performance and operability.

From the Galveston County Daily News – A day after Lockheed Martin won the bid to build NASA’s next-generation spacecraft, Orion, intriguing real estate speculation began orbiting.

The work to build the shuttle’s successor is expected to create about 1,100 jobs. Numbers fluctuate, but Lockheed Martin Space Operations has more than 1,000 employees in the region and offices at 2625 Bay Area Blvd. Word has it that a new office to house all the new workers is being planned on the site of the recently demolished Clarion Hotel, 1301 NASA Road 1.

Ultimately, NASA is expected to spend $8 billion to build Orion.

Windsor Locks, Conn.-based Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. in Hartford, has been named to a Lockheed Martin-led team selected to develop NASA’s new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle.

The work is worth several hundred million dollars to Hamilton Sundstrand, according to company officials.

Other companies involved in the Orion project, which aims to build America’s next generation of spacecraft for exploration, include Aerojet General Corp., Honeywell International Inc., Orbital Sciences Corp. and the United Space Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. which is the prime contractor for the space shuttle program.

Hamilton Sundstrand will provide 13 key systems to the exploration vehicle, including the fire detection and suppression system, carbon monoxide removal/humidity control system, pressure control system, atmospheric monitoring system, cabin air ventilation and potable/cooling water storage.

Hamilton Sundstrand will also support Lockheed Martin as a systems integrator in the development of the new vehicle, integrating the vehicle’s power management and distribution, environmental and life support, actuation, and extra vehicular activity interface systems.

The Orion project, which is estimated to cost $3.4 billion, aims to be ready to carry crew and materials to the International Space Station by 2014 and to the moon and back by 2020.

Development of the vehicle has already begun. Hamilton Sundstrand will sustain production and engineering through 2019, officials said.