NASA officials on Thursday told Congress the agency will decide how to best upgrade safety in its shuttle fleet and what the cost will be by January 2000.
NASA gave its two top priorities for the upgrades, but little other new information surfaced at the meeting -- the third in a series of hearings on the subject before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics.
"We need a clear sense of which upgrades to the shuttle are essential and which ones are just nice to have," said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.
Andy Allen, director of space shuttle development at private shuttle operator United Space Alliance, said because the shuttles will not be used beyond 2012, he thought it would be better to invest in them sooner rather than later. He recommended accelerating the pace of proposed upgrades, with 60 percent of the total cost spent by 2003.
"We need to make a decision in the next year or next eight months," Allen said.
While nothing is finalized, NASA has specified two high priority upgrades that should be made to the shuttles by 2005.
One is to replace the current hydrazine powered unit with a battery-powered electric motor. This would eliminate toxic and hazardous conditions on the ground and in space, said William Readdy, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Flight.
The other is an advanced health monitoring upgrade to the main engines that would provide real-time engine assessment. This could reduce the probability of engine failure by 25 percent.
NASA's Development Office -- which receives $100 million a year from the agency to select and fund upgrades -- is evaluating several possibilities for improving engines and cockpit computers. It hopes to finalize them by next January, Readdy said.
He also noted that Congress has appropriated an additional $25 million for space shuttle safety upgrades for next year.
According to Byron K. Wood, vice-president and general manager of Boeing's Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power, the possible engine upgrades include:
- A vibration monitoring system that would shut down the shuttle in an emergency.
- An optical device that analyzes the exhaust plume in order to diagnose abnormal engine wear.
The shuttle program would do well to combine possible upgrade proposals, said Stephen Book, a member of the National Research Council's committee on shuttle upgrades.
"[The program] should not consider proposed upgrades as standalone proposals, but where appropriate, should look for ways to combine upgrades to efficiently meet future requirements."
The probability of losing a shuttle is currently one in 245, Readdy said. The next upgrade, in the Block II main engine, will increase that safety to one in 483, he added.
"We hope to double that to one in 735," Readdy said, although "it's hard to pin down" exact numbers for their goal of making the shuttle as safe as it can be.
Currently, all the shuttles are grounded due to wiring problems.
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