SPACE.com -- NASA Working with Contractors to Explore Shuttle Successor

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	NASA Working with Contractors to Explore Shuttle Successor By Chris Kridler FLORIDA TODAY posted: 09:30 am ET 30 October 2002

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA is talking with the two contractors who developed next-generation rockets about carrying the next-generation space shuttle.

The space agency may announce whether it will launch astronauts aboard an expendable rocket-launched ship instead of a shuttle when its next budget is made public in early 2003, some space officials suggested Tuesday at the annual Cape Canaveral Spaceport Symposium being held this week at the Cape.

"We are working closely with NASA, now, today, on the possibility of putting a winged vehicle on top of a Delta 4, our heavy version," said Will Trafton, vice president and general manager of Boeing Expendable Launch Systems.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin developed new rockets in cooperation with the Air Force as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, which is designed to save taxpayers money by letting commercial forces motivate the contractors to be more efficient. The first Atlas 5 launched successfully. The new Delta 4 is scheduled to launch Nov. 16.

Lockheed Martin also is talking with NASA about putting a ship on a rocket. "We have been working with NASA to try to work the different avenues," said Adrian Laffitte, director of Atlas launch operations. "We are doing a study."

The study is part of NASA's Space Launch Initiative (SLI), which recently has refocused on its initial goals, SLI deputy program manager Dan Dumbacher said. The program is aimed at conceiving every aspect of a next-generation launch system, not just a new ship, he said.

Besides a new ship design, the SLI program, which is based at Alabama's Marshall Space Flight Center, is considering ground and payload support for the new ship; systems for reviewing the ship and approving it for flight; and software requirements.

"We found ourselves involved in more of the details on designing the rocket than what we needed to be doing at this point in time," Dumbacher said, so instead of concentrating on which ship to build, "we've put that decision off for a while."

"The GAO report is out and other things saying we need to spend more time on requirements," he added, "so that's what we're trying to do."

NASA's administration, under Sean O'Keefe, is considering information submitted by SLI officials and will decide which direction NASA will go, Dumbacher said. In a recent letter to a Texas lawmaker, O'Keefe said SLI studied a rocket-carried ship that could take crews to and from the International Space Station.

If a new ship piggybacks on a rocket, it might fly at the same time shuttles are flying and serve a different function, Boeing and Lockheed Martin officials suggested.

Such a ship could be used to supply the space station or act as an emergency escape vehicle, replacing the Russian Soyuz ships used as escape capsules, Laffitte said. Soyuz production is guaranteed only through 2006, and Russian officials have threatened to stop production early due to lack of funds.

"I think those will be the two areas that we will get started," Laffitte said, before attempting to make the ship a replacement for the shuttle.

Still, he admitted, "man-rating" a rocket so it's considered safe enough for people could be a difficult job.

The rocket concept is just one option under study, Kennedy Space Center Director Roy Bridges said.

"That's the way we got started, so obviously we were able to do that in the earlier days, and of course we have more capable vehicles now," Bridges said.

Boeing's Trafton acknowledged the buzz about the rocket option. "There is increased interest in using expendable launch vehicles to launch a winged vehicle of some kind to space and to space station," Trafton said.

The SLI approach to designing a new ship is different from anything NASA has attempted, Dumbacher said. "In addition to the performance, I have to address cost and reliability/safety, and that's something that hasn't been done before in the rocket business."

No matter what type of ship NASA's leaders decide to pursue, Dumbacher said, his program will design a completely new system around it.

"The SLI program is dedicated to coming up with technologies and enabling NASA to make a decision to achieve even greater levels of safety and reliability in the future," said Jeremiah Creedon, NASA's associate administrator for aerospace technology.