Recently in NASA Category

NASA is returning the commercial crew development programme (CCDev) to its original contracting mechanism, the Space Act Agreement (SAA), after indicating otherwise for several months.

In a 15 December announcement, NASA deputy administrator William Gerstenmaier announced the agency would continue to use SAAs instead of federal acquisition regulations (FARs) it had planned to use.

The FAR vs. SAA battle has been ongoing for some time, and received no small amount of press, but for what might be considered a minor issue it actually has an outsize impact.

FAR is the standard way the government purchases goods and services. They allow NASA to describe exactly what it wants, when it wants it and how the thing should be built. Penalties can be imposed if the contracted firm can't deliver the goods on time.

SAAs, on the other hand, are much more flexible. Under a funded SAA - several unfunded ones have been signed - NASA can't dictate standards or process, just award money when certain actions are deemed completed by both NASA and the contractor. For CCDev, NASA decided to award money based on a checkpoint system: the contractor gets NASA money for completing certain tasks, finishing wind tunnel testing, for example, or completing a component review.

 The companies, of course, much prefer SAAs to FAR. It makes things less expensive, as they don't necessarily have to built to NASA's standards, allows greater leeway for payments, and generally makes government interactions easier.

 Gerstenmaier said that NASA decided to return to SAAs due to budget concerns. CCDev was awarded just over $400 million in the latest budget, well under the $850 million that President Obama requested. Further cuts are possible as the government struggles with mounting financial difficulties, an ever-increasing deficit resulting in increasing budget pressure.

If you're interested in the future of spaceflight, it's worth taking the time to watch this video from The Amazing Meeting (TAM) 2011. Lightly moderated by Phil Plait of the blog Bad Astronomy, the panel features Bill Nye (the science guy), famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, legendary physicist Lawrence Krauss and astronomer Pamela Gay.

At issue is whether human spaceflight is as valuable as robotic probes, and whether or not to go ice fishing on Europa.

It's important to note that although panelists mention the James Webb telescope, the panel took place before the SLS decision.

Just as the Iranians don't reveal failed launches, NASA doesn't reveal all their satellite reentries...

Have a good weekend!

Below and in the extended portion of this blog post are my notes from a telecon I had with a Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration project manager in mid-2009. The bizarre situation was that I was at the Colorado Convention Center and Lockheed Martin Space Systems is only a car journey away but I couldn't get a rental car to get myself there (something was happening that meant all the rentals in and around Denver were taken) and the aerospace prime didn't seem too enthusiastic to come get me

I had planned to write the interview up at the time but events got in the way and despite repeated attempts since to get an interview with Lockheed to update this information and write a feature or lengthy blog nothing came of any of it

In the months since that telecon we have had news about the Orion heat shield being made by Lockheed, the choice of lithium aluminum supplier has been made with Rio Tinto Alcan annuoncing its selection and there have been Aerojet engine tests and ATK's Orion launch abort system attitude control motor tests; and one company called G Systems has made public the fact that it has delivered its test stations to the Michoud Assembly Facility for Orion. Next month I think there is an Orion pad abort test too

Anyway, last year I began to write "After a 10-month delay to its preliminary design review NASA has spent over $3 billion on its Orion crew exploration vehicle," and below are my notes

International Space Station (ISS) is higher inclination [than lunar orbit], requires more launch vehicles performance but the spacecraft is [now] lighter

Can carry 3,500lb more cargo to ISS with four crew

Four crew is now the baseline but requirements for that have not been spread through out Constellation

Amount of [crew] consumables didn't change very much [with crew reduction]

We have always kept the waste management system

[Astronaut corp] Crew has been very involved from the beginning

"Driving all the systems to an optimal path, we need enough time to check out the vehice before we fly"

Fan motors have a two year lead time

Putting together different options for Orion and its service module (SM), 17,500lb propellant for lunar, 8,000lb for ISS, SM can be used as a space tug, this could have 16,000lb

we are at 606G design for PDR and after next two cycles get to 606H

21 August have PDR board that lasts for a couple of days

NASA administrator Charles Bolden had an op-ed in today's {well the website says 27 April) yesterday's Houston Chronicle that is notably short and strangely refers to a 2015 International Space Station retirement date in the present tense

While I can understand why he was making the point of the Constellation programme's Ares I crew launch vehicle and its Orion crew exploration vehicle only starting to operate after ISS was to be retired in 2015 surely president Barack Obama has now OK'd station use to 2020? Bolden doesn't mention that his plan's commercial crew programme is not expected to deliver an operational crew transport system until 2016 at the earliest

But Bolden has greater problems than the use of tense in an op-ed, as the Congressional investigation into actions by NASA on Constellation contracts steps up a gear; has the agency broken the law?

I wonder how Congress will also feel about co-operation with the Chinese? According to the Agence France Presse, via the Times Colonist (?) website, Bolden said Tuesday that he would be happy to co-operate with China - the rumours are a US astronaut would fly on a Shenzhou mission

And just to add to Bolden's Congressional woes, on the same day as his Houston Chornicle op-ed, 27 April, another Congressman gave their penny's worth on the Obama plan

The Hunstville Times isn't giving president Barack Obama's NASA plan a good write up with its latest article about the political reaction to the flexible path to asteroids and Mars from 2025

With the headline, NASA plan: 'Cosmic bridge to nowhere', the article has a particularly strong qoute from a Senate staffer that says, "I don't know how many more blunt objects we have to hit NASA over the head with"

Despite this aggressive talk what the article communicates is a view that the Moon return programme Constellation's proponents know they are unlikely to win and save it. But its not stopping them from trying, see this spacepolitics.com post here and this one here by NASAWatch

The Huntsville article also refers to a Congressional hearinjg in mid-May. This could be the hearing that was mentoned during the last Senate hearing with NASA administrator Charles Bolden

Following a meeting between the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programmes and the space operations mission directorate's senior management NASA has concluded that

• STS-133/Discovery now becomes the Launch-On-Need (LON) vehicle for the STS-132/ULF-4 mission targeted for 14 May launch
• STS-133/ULF-5 is to fly 16 September
• STS-134/ULF6/AlphaMagneticSpectrometer is targeted for mid-November
• AMS should be at Kennedy Space Center in late August - so STS-134 date is still fluid
• While November is the new "no earlier than" launch date for STS-134/Endeavour, due to ISS traffic with Soyuz, ATV and HTV a flight timeframe of "end of CY2010 and early into CY2011" is said to be "challenging"

credit: NASA / caption: plenty has been done and there is plenty more for Constellation

When this blogger saw the headline of this 30 March article by Aviation Week's senior space editor Frank Morring it seemed that the "program of record" that dare not speak its name had finally broken cover and spoken to the media after a self imposed vow of silence

But alas no, even Aviation Week's article had no detail on what was going on with Constellation and so there was still everything to play for, time to hit the phones and email - again

Now, by way of leaked emails, it seems that Constellation's management are preparing for any eventuality

But way back at the beginning on the 1 February the newly published fiscal year 2011 (1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011) budget request for NASA had notably continued funding the Moon return Constellation programme until 2012, even if it was cancelled this year

This blogger decided that whatever anyone thought of the programme's merit it was worth giving the space agency a call. A call to find out how the Ares and Orion and lunar surface systems project offices were planning to spend in FY2010 and FY2011 the $8 billion odd budgeted for for Constellation

NASA's new human spaceflight standards may not be as rigorous as those it already demands for high profile launches such as James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) or Cassini

In an emailed answer to Hyperbola's question about NASA Launch Services (NLS) vehicle certification requirements and crew transport the US space agency says: "NLS is only applicable to NASA payloads, not crew. You should not infer any relationship between NLS and commercial crew."

Yet for high profile "class A" missions, such as JWST, to be launched on a "category three" low risk launch vehicle NASA's certification requirements ask for a 14 consecutive successful flight history - go here for related launch policy directive documentation

United Launch Alliances' Delta IV doesn't have that, Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Falcon 9 won't have that until 2013 at least, Orbital Sciences' Taurus II never will because it only has eight commercial resupply missions manifested and so only the ULA Atlas V has an adequate launch history - is this what the final report of the Review of US human space flight plans was referring too with its mystery booster?

Sorry, I hear you say, but that is for payloads, not crew. So are you saying that crews will ride on rockets with a lesser launch history than payloads? And if it is greater, well at least you have until 2016 for those commercial crew programme vehicles but NASA administrator Charles Bolden's hopes of something sooner seem a bit dashed

Is this situation what Bolden was referring to yesterday in the Senate hearing when he said that SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was a cheaper longer term option and that instead Orion was the choice for an International Space Station escape capsule three year's hence?

The Orion crew exploration vehicle looks set to return not only as an escape capsule but also as a beyond low Earth orbit spacecraft according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden

In today's Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing Bolden said that Orion would become a programme of incremental improvement to realise a spacecraft that can conduct missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO)

On 1 February this year Orion was effectively cancelled by president Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 (starting 1 October 2010) NASA budget and then on 15 April Obama declared that the Lockheed Martin developed spacecraft would be an escape capsule. But Obama's plan for NASA also envisages human missions beyond the Moon to asteroids and Mars

Now Bolden appears to have given back to Orion the mission it was to have originally, going beyond LEO

Bolden also indicated that he expected Orion to be able to begin operation as an escape capsule in three years, long before any commercial provider. He said he saw the likes of Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Dragon capsule as a longer term but cheaper prospect

This would seem to be a blow to the hopes of those companies planning to be a part of NASA's $6 billion commercial crew programme. In particular SpaceX which has stated it could deliver an ISS crew transport vehicle three years after being given the go-ahead