Constellation: May 2009 Archives

Poor Charles Bolden. If he does actually become NASA administrator he'll have a flat budget, the job of retiring the world's only reusable spaceplane (and a few thousand workers), preside over a divisive review of US human spaceflight plans (more on that in another blog post), sign an expensive Russian deal for US International Space Station crew transport, extend ISS use and end America's hopes of returning to the Moon by 2020, dash COTS-D dreams, suffer vocal space science lobbying, Congressional pressure about aeronautics under funding and at some point take incoming from certain high profile bloggers; it is a good thing he's a former US Marine

And that is why Hyperbola thought it so appropriate to copy The Onion's famous headline from November 2004 when a certain person was elected to be the "leader of the free world"

credit Fermilab / caption: during the telecon Augustine said he did not know why he had been picked for the job

On 8 May 2009 former Lockheed Martin chairman Norman Augustine spoke to the media on a NASA teleconference about the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans he is going to lead with a panel of about ten that Augustine said is likely to include former astronauts, engineers and people with space operations experience. Listen to part one here and part two here of the 22min telecon. Hyperbola was not selected to ask a question

The $250 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 that is going to NASA exploration systems and not its commercial COTS work (which is getting $150 million) is being split in the following ways according to Exporation Systems Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Doug Cooke

• $4 million for materials to understand their failure limits
• $25 million for the Ares I mobile launch platform
• $10.2 million for SBIR work
• $165 million for Orion crew exploration vehicle, including $112 million to develop engineering development test units, incl life support and propulsion
• $49 million for accelerating the development of an Orion service module test article

Reviewing my audio recording of this answer it wasn't at all clear and initially it seemed to be a list of separate items that added up to $365 million and that had to be wrong so after repeatedly listening to it I think it is the above split with Orion winning the lion's share  

Cooke said that the agency wanted to spend as much of this money as it could this year rather than next but the FY2009 operational plan currently with Congress would be reviewed and how those funds could be split over this year fiscal year and the next was yet to be finally decided

Reading through the NASA fisal year 2010 budget exporation systems subsection it says that Orion crew exploration vehicle's preliminary design review will be in the fourth quarter, when it was planned for mid-2009 and Ares I-X will be in August, not July but this had been expected due to the need for two Space Shuttles on the two launch pads for STS-125. See below a screen grab from the budget showing requests for Ares I crew launch vehicle additional work. Ares seems to have won the lion's share of the ARRA monies with an extra $350 million over FY2009 while Orion is flat

credit NASA

Go here for NASA's fiscal year 2010 budget information

credit NASA / Lockheed Martin / caption: Flight Orion 1's software will differ to Orion 2 or 3

Below and in the extended section of this blog posting are answers from the Orion project office regarding decisions taken for the Orion crew exploration vehicle's software and how its development is to be phased to ensure verified flight software is available for the Orion 1 mission. Read flightglobal.com's related Orion software story here 

1 Can you confirm that Orion's software code is now estimated to be around 1.1 million lines?

1.1 million source lines of code (SLOC) falls roughly in the middle of the range of software sizing estimates the project has conducted in recent months.  Software sizing estimation is an art that employs differing methods and requires assumptions about complexity, functionality and content that is highly dependent on the details of the application for which the software is written.

Since Orion is in preliminary design and the systems, subassemblies and component designs are now being revealed, the details upon which more precise software sizing estimates will be based are still being validated.  We believe the Orion software sizing estimates reflect the current requirements and needs for Orion, and are well within the historical software quantity needed for a spacecraft of this complexity.

As rumoured the US president's office of science and technology policy (OSTP) has today initiated a review of the country's human spaceflght plans with what is to be a "blue ribbon" panel that will work for about 60-days and report by August. The OSTP press release can be found here and the letter from OSTP head John Holdren to acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese is here

The study will examine options for using International Space Station beyond 2016 because, I would imagine, the impact that decision has on Constellation's timetable for developing its Ares V cargo launch vehicle and Altair lunar lander

Hyperbola will be manned during US eastern daylight time business hours on Thursday 7 May to ensure it can cover the NASA fiscal year 2010 budget roll out

Is it that surprising that a new Democratic party administration might want to understand what has come of a controversial Republican president's return to the Moon programme that is set to last the entirety of the new government's term of office?

Its one way an Obama supporter might spin the much reported review of NASA's Constellation programme

Initially Obama had talked about a review of the space agency's core mission, then NASA's John Olsen told Hyperbola that the organisation expected a blue ribbon review with the new incoming administrator and now the word on the street is that the Moon programme is to be the focus of a review that will start shortly

The blogosphere has latched onto what this review could mean for the Ares I crew launch vehicle and its much derided solid rocket motor first stage. This follows in the wake of reports of NASA reducing the crew compliment of the Orion crew exploration vehicle and other internet claims that an Aerospace Corporation report for NASA says that Evolved Expendable Launch vehicles aka EELVs can send Orion into low Earth orbit as well as Ares can

But Hyperbola has learned that the review is likely to take on the characteristics of a truth and reconciliation committee