Credit: NASA Ares project office
NASA has asked industry for its views about the development of the US space agency's Ares V cargo launch vehicle (CaLV).
In its information package to industry the agency has also identified a series of changes to Ares V that are being studied in the "trade space". They include a common core for PBAN and HTPB fuelled boosters, payload shroud shape optimization (this is the move to an Ogive "bullet" shape), a core-stage six engine layout (with all the engines shown in a circular layout in the full RFI presentation), an on-orbit Loiter Module vs integrated avionics and alternate missions' designs
The presentation NASA released on 9 July provides the cargo launch vehicle's development timetable up to 2020 while the above trade space study subjects were included in an additional presentation slide released on 25 July
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credit: NASA Ares project office
NASA wants to know industry's views on, potential barriers to competition for Ares V contracts, alternative stack integration procurement approaches and the pros and cons of a phased acquisition process having early, multiple, fixed price concept design contracts that lead to awards at milestones such as System Design Review or Preliminary Design Review
Credit: NASA Ares project office
Some of these will be discussed in my forthcoming Ares progress feature that should be on flightglobal.com by the end of next week
> pros and cons of a phased acquisition process having early, multiple, fixed price...
zzzzzzz
> with all the engines shown in a circular layout
Awake again. 5 years & the Ares V guy "team" is still stumped. SSME's are looking better by the decade.