WASHINGTON - Even as NASA targets May 15 for its first space shuttle launch since Columbia broke up over the Western United States Feb.1, 2003 on its way home to the Kennedy Space Center after two weeks in orbit conducting science experiments, many in the agency are working diligently to prepare the agency for life without the shuttle after 2010.

 

Prior to the Columbia accident, NASA officials were making plans for keeping the shuttle in service until 2020 or beyond. NASA plans to conduct as many as three missions this year and five missions every year hereafter until the end of the decade.

 

In the meantime, NASA's three remaining space shuttle orbiters and all the supporting infrastructure will continue to age. Even the space station, the first pieces of which were launched in 1998, is starting to show signs of wear and tear, with some components expected to reach the end of their design lives not long after the shuttle is due to retire.

 

Anticipating the many technical, business and budgetary issues likely to come up as NASA and its stable of contractors head toward the shuttle's 2010 retirement date is the focus of the Integrated Space Operations Planning (ISOP) summit the agency is hosting March 29-31 in Nashville, Tenn.

 

Michael Kostelnik, NASA's deputy associate administrator for the space shuttle and international space station programs, said ISOP is essentially an evolution of the Service Life Extension Program, an annual effort he initiated in 2002 to bring greater coherence to NASA's process for selecting space shuttle upgrades.

 

With the shuttle's retirement a precondition for embarking on human space expeditions beyond Earth orbit, Kostelnik said it no longer makes sense for NASA to be talking about extending the service life of the shuttle fleet. But NASA still must do everything it can to keep the shuttle flying safely until its very last mission.

 

"We have all the supporting infrastructure -- things like the crawler and the [Vehicle Assembly Building] and the mission control centers. We have a lot of people and contractors that are involved in this activity."

 

The broader focus of the Integrated Space Operations Planning summit, Kostelnik said, is recognition that the international space station, although years away from completion, is no longer a young asset. Retiring the shuttle, he said, complicates planning for keeping the station in good health beyond 2010.

 

"Some things like the control momentum gyros only the space shuttle can carry," he said. "So with these types of large spares, you need to do the conceptual thinking and planning now of how you will sustain the space station after the shuttle is gone."

 

And even though Kostelnik expects the orbiters to return to flight "in the best shape they have ever been" that does not mean they will not continue to age.

 

Making smart upgrade decisions, he said, becomes all the more critical as the shuttle's retirement draws nearer. "Because increasingly we will not want to put more investment in the system that we have to, but at the same time we want to make the investments necessary to ensure we can fly the missions and fly them safely."

 

Kostelnik said retiring the space shuttle orbiter fleet also raises a number of industrial base considerations, not just for NASA but for the United States as a whole.

 

"Not only do you have to figure out what workforce and what contractors and physical plant to keep, but the space shuttle as an entity has been carrying some capabilities for the country that nobody else is carrying, things like aluminum lithium [used to build the external tanks] and other materials only the shuttle uses," he said. "There are industrial base issues like that ... when we no longer need those entities [for the space shuttle] it becomes a question of whether some other part of the government should take over responsibility ... or deciding that as a coun¬try we are going to walk away from that material or process."

 

Kostelnik said that at least some portion of the shuttle workforce and related facilities would be needed to support NASA's new exploration goals. "That in itself requires very careful planning," he said. "A big part of ISOP is not just upgrades and investments in shuttle [and station] -- those will continue to the extent necessary ... but most importantly we need to smartly transition our ongoing space operations in the most effective and efficient way to support the new space exploration vision."

 

NASA faces a number of upcoming decisions that will have a bearing on how NASA and its contractors handle that transition. NASA determined last year that it needs to fly 28 space shuttle missions to finish the space station as planned. NASA is currently reassessing that flight manifest as part of a re-examination of what research wants to accomplish aboard the station. The agency is expected to issue an updated shuttle manifest this year that could call for fewer than 28 shuttle flights.

 

NASA is also studying its launcher requirements for its new exploration goals, which begins with a re¬turn to the Moon by 2020. While NASA is looking at heavy-lift designs that would make use of space shuttle systems such as the main engines, solid rocket boosters and external tank, the agency is also evaluating heavy-lift designs based on the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 expendable rockets.