[ Last in a series of posts about the companies that won and lost in NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) competition ]

Of the four companies that submitted CCiCap proposals deemed technically viable by NASA, [...]]]>

An illustration of the cargo module capability for the ATK/EADS Astrium Liberty system announced in June. (credit: ATK)

[ Last in a series of posts about the companies that won and lost in NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) competition ]

Of the four companies that submitted CCiCap proposals deemed technically viable by NASA, ATK’s Liberty system was the odd one out, the only one not receiving a funded agreement. That raises the question: will ATK and its partners, notably EADS Astrium, continue to pursue development of the full system or some subset of it, like the launch vehicle?

Since the announcement a week ago ATK has remained quiet. “ATK and the Liberty Team are disappointed that we were not selected by NASA” for a CCiCap award, the company said in a statement last Friday. “We continue to believe Liberty provides the safest, most cost-effective crew and cargo transportation systems, as well as the fastest path to recover America’s human launch capability and engage the workforce and facilities at Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, and others. We look forward to a debriefing from NASA.”

The company’s supporters in Congress have been more vocal, though. “I am disappointed and disheartened by the news that NASA has excluded ATK from the companies” that won CCiCap awards, said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) in a statement. “It was my understanding that ATK’s Liberty proposal ranked very high in technical merit, and was the lowest-risk option,” he added, although NASA has yet to disclose the details of its selection process.

In comments Bishop and his office provided to a local newspaper, the Ogden Standard-Examiner, he suggested political factors may have played a role. “I have been concerned that favoritism may be playing far too prominent a role in NASA’s decision-making process, especially with regard to companies closely tied to key NASA officials,” he said, citing among other factors various visits by NASA leadership to some of the companies that won awards but not to ATK.

On Thursday, in a call with financial analysts to discuss the company’s latest quarterly earnings report, ATK president and CEO Mark DeYoung suggested that Liberty was, at the very least, not a priority for the company going forward, if the company even planned to pursue it. He reiterated on a couple occasions that ATK was “disappointed” in the CCiCap decision. “We offered a safe, mature, affordable solution to NASA, and we’re looking forward to learning more about their decision.”

However, he also said that, unlike its work on the Space Launch System and advanced booster concepts related to it, Liberty was not as high a priority for ATK. “Liberty was a little bit of a longer shot for us, so we hadn’t planned on it, so from that view it should not have any significant financial impact for the company,” he said. “Going forward, we’re going to focus on SLS, we’re going to focus on the advanced booster, we’re going to execute on those programs.” He later said that, with regards to commercial crew, “we were disappointed, we’re moving on.”

ATK officials involved with Liberty had previously indicated that the company would continue its efforts on the program if it didn’t get an award, albeit at a slower pace. DeYoung’s comments hint that progress on Liberty could come at a far slower pace—or possibly not at all.

Some people noted earlier this week an article by Talking Points Memo (TPM) reporting that NASA plans to make selections in the next round of its commercial crew effort, the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) [...]]]>

An illustration of the cargo module capability for the ATK/EADS Astrium Liberty system announced earlier this week. (credit: ATK)

Some people noted earlier this week an article by Talking Points Memo (TPM) reporting that NASA plans to make selections in the next round of its commercial crew effort, the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program, in July or August, making more than one award. While TPM, a website primarily devoted to political news, treated that development as newsworthy, that has been in fact NASA’s plan for some time now, especially after NASA worked out an agreement with a key House appropriator, Frank Wolf, about the future of the commercial crew program. During a press teleconference on June 18 about a memorandum of understanding between NASA and FAA on commercial crew regulation, for example, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said he expected the awards to come by mid-July.

NASA has said little else about the state of the competition, beyond its plan to make “two and a half” awards: two full-sized awards and a third smaller award. What NASA hasn’t disclosed is which companies submitted CCiCap proposals. One can guess, though, that at least five companies are bidding for CCiCap: the four companies with funded second-round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) awards—Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX—and the ATK/EADS Astrium team that has an unfunded CCDev-2 agreement with NASA. And while these companies have made a number of announcements about their CCDev efforts, it’s been that last team that has been the most active in making the case for their crew transportation concept.

In the course of less than a week (June 28 through July 3), ATK issued five press releases related to Liberty, including:

• A teaming agreement with NanoRacks, who will market experiment space on future Liberty missions;
• Completion of a technical interface meeting (TIM) for Liberty’s software;
• Successful tests of tank structures for Liberty’s second stage, which is based on the core stage of EADS’s Ariane 5;
• The creation of an independent assessment team for Liberty, led by former astronaut Bryan O’Connor and including another former astronaut, Ken Bowersox, who formerly worked for SpaceX; and
• The announcement of a combined cargo and crew capability for Liberty, through an “extended cargo configuration” that can accommodate a cargo module based on the Multi-Purpose Logistic Module previously flown to the ISS on shuttle flights.

Their publicity push goes beyond press releases. Listeners to WTOP-FM, an all-news radio station in Washington, DC, have probably heard by now an ATK/EADS ad for Liberty during its broadcasts: a short spot playing up the benefits of Liberty to service the ISS. Such ads aren’t usual on WTOP for the defense industry (right now it’s sharing airtime with one from Lockheed Martin extolling the benefits of a missile defense systems called MEADS.) However, it’s much rarer for the commercial space field, and none of the other likely CCiCap bidders are running similar ads.

(ATK has also benefited from some friendly media coverage, like this article published Wednesday at NASASpaceFlight.com, which cites unnamed sources who claim Liberty “is actually becoming a favorite option of some high ranking Agency managers.” The site, though, may have missed the unintentional irony of the July 4th-themed headline—“ATK push for US space flight independence via Liberty”—when Liberty uses a second stage manufactured in Europe.)

Is a media push like this effective, though? As noted above, radio spots, as well as ads in newspapers and on Metro, Washington’s subway system, are commonplace in the defense industry during major procurements: at the height of the deliberations over a new Air Force tanker last year, the airwaves on WTOP at times seemed to consist of nothing but dueling ads from EADS and Boeing. Did it provide much advantage to Boeing, who won the contract? That’s hard to say, but it’s clear from this push that ATK is very interested in winning a CCiCap award to develop Liberty.

Speaking in a media telecon Monday morning, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said he expected the awards to be announced “no later than, say, mid-July [...]]]> The administrator of NASA said Monday he expects the space agency to announce multiple awards for the next round of its commercial crew development effort by the middle of next month.

Speaking in a media telecon Monday morning, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said he expected the awards to be announced “no later than, say, mid-July or so, that’s our hope,” he said. NASA had previously indicated that the awards would come by August, but chatter in the industry suggested that timetable could be moved up based on the progress NASA was making with scheduling oral presentations by companies submitting proposals.

Bolden said later in the telecon that NASA plans to select “upwards of three companies” in this round of the program, called Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap). However, he said they would fund the equivalent of “two and a half” companies: two will get full-sized awards and a third would get a half-sized award. (Although not explicitly stated, Bolden’s language suggests that other companies could get unfunded Space Act Agreements, as was the case in the earlier rounds of the program.) That award system aligns with what Bolden and a key member of Congress, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, agreed to earlier this month as part of a deal to address the concerns Wolf had with the commercial crew program.

NASA did not disclose on the call how many companies submitted CCiCap proposals, citing the sensitive nature of the ongoing competition. It’s likely, though, that at least five major players submitted proposals, including the four companies with second round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) funded agreements: Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX. In addition, the ATK/EADS Astrium joint venture proposing the Liberty launch vehicle, which has an unfunded CCDev-2 award from NASA, has also indicated they’ve submitted a proposal for CCDev-2.

How big these full- or half-sized awards have yet to be announced, and will depend in part on what the companies are asking for. Bolden said he will continue to push for full funding for the commercial crew program in Congress for fiscal year 2013: just under $830 million. The House and Senate versions of the appropriations bill that includes NASA, though, fund the program at $500 and $525 million, respectively. “We will ask for a significant increase in 2014 and the other years if we are to hold to the 2017 first flight for commercial crew to the International Space Station,” he said.

NASA officials also said on the telecon that, contrary to some language used in media reports about the commercial crew competition, the CCiCap awards are not a “downselect”. What that likely means is that any company will be able to submit bids for the next phase of the program after CCiCap, which will be run under more conventional Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rules. That causes some confusion since Congressional critics like Rep. Wolf had pushed NASA to downselect to even a single company going forward, something NASA objected to in order to preserve competition and redundancy.

The news about the commercial crew competition overshadowed the primary purpose of the hastily-arranged telecon, which was to announce a memorandum of understanding between NASA and the FAA regarding regulation of commercial spaceflight. For commercial cargo, and future commercial crew, missions to the ISS performed for NASA, the FAA will license the launches and reentries as they do today, with NASA taking responsibility for crew safety and mission assurance oversight. That division of labor (which does not apply to commercial cargo or crew missions that don’t involve NASA; the space agency will have no oversight role in those cases) was largely expected.

Early last year Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and EADS Astrium unveiled a new launch vehicle called Liberty, using a five-segment solid rocket booster built by ATK for the lower stage and a modified Ariane 5 core stage built [...]]]>

Illustration of the ATK/EADS Astrium Liberty system, featuring the Liberty rocket and a crew capsule. (Credit: ATK)

Early last year Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and EADS Astrium unveiled a new launch vehicle called Liberty, using a five-segment solid rocket booster built by ATK for the lower stage and a modified Ariane 5 core stage built by Astrium for the upper stage. The companies hoped to win funds from NASA’s second-round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) competition, primarily as as an alternative to the Atlas 5 for vehicles being proposed by companies other than SpaceX (which, of course, is using its own Falcon 9).

The companies didn’t win CCDev-2 funding but did get an unfunded Space Act Agreement to support continued study of the vehicle. In the meantime, though, the companies that did get CCDev-2 funding for their vehicles—Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX—all selected other vehicles for their spacecraft: SpaceX using its own Falcon 9, while the other three picking the Atlas 5. Liberty, it appeared, was left without a ride.

Wednesday, though, in a briefing at the Spacecraft Technology Expo in Los Angeles, the companies announced their new plan: developing their own full-service crew transportation system, also called Liberty, using the previously-announced Liberty rocket and a crew capsule. That capsule is based on a composite crew capsule previously built by ATK for testing by NASA during Constellation. The vehicle’s service module is a slimmed-down version of the one bring developed for Orion by Lockheed Martin, while the crew escape system is the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS), developed originally as an alternative to Orion’s traditional escape tower system and successfully tested at NASA Wallops in 2009.

ATK and Astrium officials, at the LA announcement, said that Liberty could be ready soon: initial test launches of the abort system would take place in 2014, with test flights of the full system in 2015, the second carrying a two-person test crew. “We have our first test crew picked out,” Kent Rominger, ATK vice president and program manager for Liberty, said, without divulging their names.

Rominger emphasized the design safety of the Liberty system, calling it “the safest ever designed.” That assessment is based on what he described as a simple design as well as the demonstrated reliability of solid rocket motors and the Ariane 5 core stage (there have been nearly 50 consecutive successful Ariane 5 launches, going back nearly a decade.) Rominger said that the risk of a fatal accident on the shuttle was no better than 1 in 200, while the Liberty system would be better than 1 in 1,200.

Liberty looks like the Ares 1 rocket that was under development by NASA for Constellation before its 2010 cancellation, which had concerns about thrust oscillation causing significant vibrations in its upper stage. However, Rominger and John Schumacher, CEO of Astrium in North America, said that the Ariane 5 core stage behaved differently than the original Ares 1 upper stage, with far less vibration. “Ares 1 was really a system tuning problem,” Rominger said, as its upper stage has natural frequencies coupled with the lower stage. The Ariane-derived upper stage doesn’t have the same tuning, he said. “We can confidently say we don’t have a problem.”

The initial market for the Liberty system is crew transportation to the ISS, but Schumacher said they have identified other markets, including cargo transportation, launches of US government satellites, tourism, and so-called “sovereign clients”, governments that want a human spaceflight program without having the ability to develop their own systems. (Notably absent from the list is commercial satellite launch, perhaps because EADS Astrium doesn’t want to compete with its own Ariane 5.)

The companies confirmed they were seeking funding from NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capabilities (CCiCap) competition, but didn’t disclose financial information, including the prices they planned to charge for their services (beyond that they would be cheaper than current Soyuz flight costs of over $60 million a seat.) Rominger said they would continue development of Liberty if they don’t receive CCiCap funding, but at a slower pace than the schedule they described that called for an initial crewed flight in 2015. “There’s no way I can meet a schedule like that without an award from NASA,” he said.