A congressionally mandated group of safety experts has argued that an abandonment of the Ares-1 rocket program would be unwise, due to the lack of firm imposition of NASA safety standards on any crewed space vehicles that are developed by commercial…
A congressionally mandated group of safety experts has argued that an abandonment of the Ares-1 rocket program would be unwise, due to the lack of firm imposition of NASA safety standards on any crewed space vehicles that are developed by commercial companies.
The annual report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) is a direct challenge to many of the recommendations on human spaceflight made last year by the White House-ordered Review of Human Space Flight Plans Committee, headed by former Lockheed Martin president Norman Augustine.
One of the major themes of the Augustine Committee’s report was the need to free up NASA resources by contracting private companies to conduct flights to the International Space Station (ISS), a move that would be a natural extension of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) agreements signed with Orbital Sciences and SpaceX for ISS cargo resupply.
Addressing this concept, the ASAP report stated: “In making this recommendation, the (Augustine) committee also noted that while human safety never can be absolutely assured, safety was assumed to be “a given.”
“The Panel believes that this assumption is premature and oversimplifies a complex and challenging problem because there is not a “cookie-cutter approach” to safety in space.”
Though neither SpaceX nor Orbital have yet been hired to provide crewed flight services, SpaceX does have an option for future manned missions in its current agreement with NASA.
Any SpaceX crewed vehicle would likely be an augmented version of its Dragon Capsule, launched on its Falcon 9 rocket, which is due to undergo its first flight by the middle of this year.
The ASAP panel’s concern regarding the current move towards crewed commercial capability is centered on its belief that NASA has not imposed the Human Rating Requirements (HRR) on the currently mooted vehicles that it has on its own Ares-1 launcher.
“It is the Panel’s position that no COTS manufacturer is currently HRR qualified, despite some claims and beliefs to the contrary,” states the ASAP. “Questions that must be answered are: What is the process for certifying that potential COTS vehicles are airworthy and capable of carrying astronauts into space safely? How is compliance assured over the life of the activity? The same questions would apply to any potential international orbital transportation systems.”
A summary of the discussion the ASAP had on this subject in its first quarter meeting in Washington DC last February further explains the possible problem with the current approach to the commercial designs.
It reads: “NASA is ensuring freedom of design by taking a hands-off approach. However, the COTS companies, some members of Congress, and other observers contend such vehicles could eventually become human capable. The ASAP is concerned that NASA’s hands-off stance has created a potential future capabilities mismatch because COTS firms might make innocent, good-faith design decisions that ultimately preclude future human-rated transport for NASA.”
The ASAP report strongly supports the continuation of the Ares-1 program, which has come under strong criticism for its cost and presumed inability to arrive on schedule. It is now believed that Ares-1 will only be ready to carry astronauts into space from 2017 onwards, when it was originally planned to enter service in 2015.
Despite this, the ASAP stresses the fact that Ares-1 has been designed with enormous emphasis on crew safety. NASA chose to use the Ares-1 architecture because it offers ten times the level of crew safety as that of the existing Space Shuttle.
The ASAP report states: “To abandon Ares I as a baseline vehicle for an alternative without demonstrated capability nor proven superiority (or even equivalence) is unwise and probably not cost-effective. The ability of any current COTS design to “close the gap” or even provide an equivalent degree of safety is speculative.”
It should be noted that the ASAP’s report is not antagonistic towards the prospect of commercial crewed vehicles, and it does not express doubts about the capability of either SpaceX or Orbital to eventually deliver a manned spacecraft that conforms to its expected safety standards.
It confirms this through in the report’s conclusion: “Commercial entities and international partners will likely have a larger role in transporting both cargo and crew to orbit. It is crucial that NASA focus on establishing the certification requirements, a certification process for orbital transportation vehicles, and a process for validating compliance.”
The primary point of concern is that under the current arrangements with NASA, the new commercial launchers will not be built from the ground up with a sole focus on manned space flight.
The ASAP points out that traditionally, HRR criteria would be applied at the initial stages of a spacecraft’s design, which it claims has not taken place in the case of the current COTS launchers.
At the panel’s third quarter meeting in 2009, concern was expressed over the compression of the general introduction of COTS, specifically the manner in which the larger second phase of cargo contracts, worth US$3.5bn, were awarded to SpaceX and Orbital prior to either company completing its first phase of development and demonstrating proven flight capability.
The panel was particularly perturbed with the plan for the introduction of SpaceX’s Falcon 9/Dragon Capsule combination, commenting “one of the contractors will demonstrate all of its capability in a single test flight, in effect ‘putting all of its eggs in one basket’.” Falcon 9/Dragon flights to the ISS will commence after the rocket’s inaugural flight.
One other option to minimize the amount of time that the US is dependent on other nations for access to space is to prolong the life of the Space Shuttle beyond its decommission date later this year.
The ASAP is opposed to such a move on the grounds that the Shuttle’s aging technology would require a complete safety recertification at every level of operation.
Its report states: “The Panel does not support extending the Shuttle significantly beyond its current manifest. We are especially concerned over any kind of “serial extension” where a few flights at a time might be added. The risk of continuing to fly the Shuttle without a recertification and expending the resources to bring the vehicle up to modern standards is more than what we should ask astronauts to shoulder.”
The Panel also recommends that NASA make a more concerted effort to convey the levels of risk involved in space travel to Congress and the general public, and the level to which the agency and the US government must shoulder that risk.
The ASAP was established in 1968. Since the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003 it has been tasked with producing its annual report to monitor NASA’s management and culture related to safety, and to examine the agency’s compliance with the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
