News
NASA Press Release — 3/7/07
WASHINGTON - NASA has established a requirements baseline for the Orion crew exploration vehicle, bringing America's next human spacecraft a step closer to construction.
The Orion Project completed its system requirements review in cooperation with its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, March 1. The review marked the first major milestone in the Orion engineering process
and provided the foundation for design, development, construction and safe operation of the spacecraft that will carry explorers to Earth orbit, to the moon, and eventually to Mars. The detailed requirements
established in this review will serve as the basis for ongoing design analysis work and systems testing.
"This is a significant step in the development of a space transportation system that will expand our horizons to include other worlds," said Skip Hatfield, Orion Project manager at NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston.
The Orion review followed an overall review of requirements for the Constellation Program that was completed in November. Similar reviews are planned later this spring for ground and mission operations
systems that will support Constellation launch systems and space flight operations ground infrastructure.
"We have now completed program-wide launch vehicle and human spacecraft system requirements reviews," said Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley. "These are important pieces of a management and
engineering puzzle that will allow us to accomplish the goal of putting humans back on the moon."
The Orion requirements data set was reviewed by agency and contractor scientists and engineers from across the country. More than 1,700 topics covering all aspects of vehicle performance, design and
qualification were discussed during the course of the formal review.
Once all project-level reviews are complete, the Constellation Program will hold another full review to update baseline requirements. A lunar architecture systems review of equipment associated with
surface exploration and science activities on the moon is expected in the spring of 2009.
For more information about NASA's Constellation Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/constellation
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov
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By Chris Bergin/David Harris, 4/26/2007
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/
A new optimized form of the huge Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) has been revealed in an updated graphic and data baseline that has been acquired by NASASpaceflight.com.
The Ares V is a vital component of NASA's 1.5-launch architecture that will return NASA astronauts to the moon at the end of the next decade, and is the largest vehicle the agency will construct since the Saturn V.
Compared to the August 2006 baseline, the vehicle is now 6,150 lbs (2789.5 kg) heavier and some 6.6ft taller. Insertion altitude is up from 78nmi to 122nmi — and the final orbit in now 120nmi circular instead of
30x160nmi. Payload using the 1.5 launch scenario has changed from 65.4mt to 63.4mt, and gross LSAM (Lunar Surface Access Module) mass from 45.4mt to 43.2mt
The core stage carries 9,782 lbs (4436kg) more propellant, while the EDS (Earth Departure Stage) carries 8,259 lbs (3745 kg) less. Engine thrust for the J2-Xd is 294,000 @ 448 sec ISP. The EDS is six feet longer,
but carries less propellant. It also appears that the propellant protection is being looked at in more detail, hence the changing propellant loads and EDS design.
By far the most important change is the reduction of loiter time in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) from 90 days to just 14. However, the plan is to launch the crew the day after the LSAM/EDS stack. A window opens every four
days after that, so there will be three chances before the propellant in the EDS "boils off."
The changes are part of an early — ongoing — process, which is receiving only a small amount of work, as NASA concentrates its limited Constellation budget on the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), which is required
primarily for US manned access to the International Space Station (ISS), before becoming the manned vehicle that will return NASA astronauts to the moon.
Such as the budget constraints at present, some work on the Ares V engines has been halted.
Meanwhile, Ares I is continuing to undergo large scale evaluations through its design cycles, which is next due for a design/program review which will take place on May 23. This will be followed by a two week
program-wide stand-down.
"The Constellation Program is planning a Strategic Planning Retreat in the middle of June 2007," noted NASA information acquired by NASASpaceflight.com.
"The Program is requesting that during the two week program wide stand down, May 28 to June 8, the project leadership use the time to socialize the Program Excellence Team (PET) roles and responsibilities within
their teams and to use the opportunity to get further feedback from the working troops on "what's working and what's not."
"One day of the planned retreat will discuss the feedback with the intent to prioritize the feedback in groups and pick the most critical to launch Kaizan events within the following quarter."
An 'All Hands' meeting was also conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) on Thursday, which related to the Constellation program.
"Marshall team members supporting the Constellation Program had an opportunity to hear the latest program update and to ask questions of Mike Griffin, Scott Horowitz, Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley and
Marshall's Exploration Launch Projects Manager Steve Cook during an informative all-hands meeting," noted Thursday's Marshall Star.
"Two of the agency's three management councils also are part of this week's activities. The Strategic Management Council, led by Griffin, met to discuss topics related to NASA's strategic direction at the vision
and mission level."
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By Brian Berger, 7/16/2007
http://www.space.com/news/070716_nasa_ares1_engine.html
WASHINGTON — NASA has signed a $1.2 billion contract with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to develop the J-2X engine the U.S. space agency needs to power the upper stages of its Ares I crew launch vehicle and Ares V heavy-lift rocket.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif. has been working on the engine, an updated version of the Apollo-heritage J-2, since June 2006 under a temporary contract awarded without a competition. That contract called for the
company to start work on five development versions of the engine followed by two certification engines.
"This is huge," Scott Horowitz, chief of NASA's Exploration Systems Directorate, during a Monday teleconference with reporters on the new contract. "It's a big deal that we now have the J-2X contract signed and ready to go because
it's a big piece in getting this rocket ready to fly."
NASA's Ares I rocket is a two-stage booster designed to launch NASA's capsule-based space shuttle successor—the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle—into low-Earth orbit. The larger Ares V, meanwhile, is slated to haul heftier payloads
into space such as cargo, rocket engine stages for Moon-bound missions, lunar landers and other hardware. Both the Ares I and Ares V rockets will rely on J-2X engines to power their second stages.
With the new contract, NASA has added one additional development engine to its order, for a total of eight.
Mike Kynard, NASA's J-2X program manager, told reporters that buying an additional development engine would allow NASA to begin its testing program sooner and conduct more tests than previously planned. Kynard said some 280 tests are
planned between 2010 and late 2012, when NASA expects to conduct the first test flight of a full-up Ares I rocket and an unmanned Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. Orion's first crewed flight is expected to occur no earlier than September 2013,
NASA officials added.
With the announcement of the J-2X contract, NASA moved a step closer to its goal of having the entire Ares I rocket under contract by the end of 2007.
"We needed to press forward so that we could still harvest some of the experience from Apollo," said Jeff Hanley, NASA's Constellation program manager for the agency's new manned spacecraft, adding that J-2X engineers sought input from
Apollo program veterans well-versed in the new engine's J-2 predecessor. "That's really been a treat, I think, for the team...to be able to go back and interact with that generation."
Steve Cook, manager of the Exploration Launch Projects Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., said the agency expects to finalize a contract with Alliant TechSystems by mid-August for the development of Ares I's
solid-rocket-booster-based main stage. Similar to Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Alliant TechSystems got started on its Ares I work last year under a temporary $120 million contract signed in late 2005.
By late August, Cook said, NASA should be ready to announce which team it has selected to build the Ares I upper stage. That competition is pitting Boeing against an Alliant Techsytems-led team that includes Orion prime contractor
Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
A separate contract for the rocket's avionics system, or instrument unit, is slated for award around early December, he said.
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07/10/2007 http://www.streetinsider.com/
Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) has received a $62.5 million contract from Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) for the main abort motor of the NASA Orion crew exploration vehicle Launch Abort System (LAS). NASA\'s Orion will succeed the Space Shuttle
in transporting humans to and from the International Space Station, as well as carrying crews to the Moon and eventually Mars.
Under the terms of the contract, ATK will design, develop, produce, test and deliver the launch abort motor (LAM), the largest of three propulsion units integrated into the LAS. The contract includes four full-scale static test units and eight deliverable motors to
Orbital for pathfinders, test flights and program support. Orbital is subcontracted to Lockheed Martin who is the prime contractor for Orion.
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