DAYTON, Ohio -- NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe has instructed the agency to accelerate development of the Orbital Space Plane and to have a vehicle ready to send to the international space station by 2008 to serve as a crew rescue vehicle.
"In light of Columbia, the administrator has asked us to accelerate by two years," said Daniel Dumbacher, manager of the second generation reusable launch vehicle program office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He said O’Keefe requested the new schedule about two weeks ago.
The previous plan had been to have a crew rescue vehicle ready for the station duty by 2010. By 2012, NASA wants a crew transfer vehicle ready to replace the shuttle and Russian-built Soyuz space vehicles for transporting crews to and from the space station.
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| Four concepts for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) design released by NASA.
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| Orbital Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman are teamed to address NASA needs for an Orbital Space Plane. CREDIT: Orbital Sciences
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| Boeing engineers are designing the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) for NASA. The company is one of three contractor teams developing proposals for the OSP which includes the spacecraft, ground operations and all supporting technologies needed to conduct missions to and from the International Space Station. CREDIT: Boeing
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| Artist concept of a cutaway view of the X-37 showing its components. The X-37 launch vehicle experimental demonstrator will operate in both the orbital and reentry phases of flight. This unpiloted Boeing-built ship could help in designing the Orbital Space Plane by flying and verifying certain technologies. CREDIT: NASA/Marshall
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Dumbacher noted that the acceleration of the program will be subject to congressional approval. He made his remarks during a presentation on the Orbital Space Plane here at the The Next 100 Years, an International Air & Space Symposium and Exposition sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Dumbacher said NASA officials have been studying how much it will cost to accelerate the Orbital Space Plane but declined to give details.
Three industry teams are competing for the Orbital Space Plane contract. Those teams are led by Boeing; Lockheed Martin; and Northrop Grumman and Orbital Sciences Corp.
While the contractors are aware of the likely schedule change, they won’t be formally notified for about two weeks, while NASA officials develop the specific requirement changes, said Stephan Davis, manager, Crew Transfer Vehicle Project at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
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