NASA’s open commitment to the development of the commercial spaceflight industry is the culmination of a shift in emphasis that has gathered pace over the past few years, most notably with the Commercial Orbital Transport Services contracts handed out to…
NASA’s open commitment to the development of the commercial spaceflight industry is the culmination of a shift in emphasis that has gathered pace over the past few years, most notably with the Commercial Orbital Transport Services contracts handed out to Orbital and SpaceX in 2008 for the resupply of the International Space Station.
The agency will now funnel a further US$6bn towards the development of commercial human spaceflight vehicles over the next five years.
As a precursor to this wider investment, NASA has announced the winners of US$50m seed funding from the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) competition, which will create and demonstrate hardware milestones for human spaceflight.
The beneficiaries of the funding are Boeing, United Launch Alliance, Paragon Space Development Corporation, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corporation.
Sierra Nevada was the biggest winner, receiving US$20m towards the development of Dreamcatcher, a seven person commercial spacecraft capable of being launched on an Atlas V rocket.
Boeing received US$18m towards its own crew capsule project, which it is working on in partnership with Bigelow Aerospace.
The United Launch Alliance, a Lockheed-Boeing joint venture, has been granted US$6.7m for further work on emergency detection to monitor the vehicle health of the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets.
Blue Origin, a private company set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is the beneficiary of US$3.7m to develop a composite crew test module and a launch escape system for its own spacecraft, currently undergoing design at the company’s facility in Texas.
The Arizona-based flight hardware manufacturer Paragon Space Development has been awarded US$1.4m for research into a new environmental control and life support air revitalisation system.
This list highlights how commercial human spaceflight is likely to be driven by a mix of new companies and established US aerospace giants.
NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said: “We are embracing the commercial industry that has existed for decades. The military has trusted the commercial sector with delivering the payloads that its war fighters depend on to space.
This will drive competition, lower costs and make space more accessible. This will unleash the economic potential of space and allow us to lead in industries that we have fallen behind in.”
Future commercial spaceflight funding will be allocated through similar competitive arrangements. A range of systems will be supported, such as the development of new spacecraft and modifying current vehicles for human use.
In its Budget report, NASA was careful to emphasise that all systems will be required to meet its human-rating requirements.
The burgeoning commercial spaceflight industry has welcomed President Obama’s change of focus. Writing on the Huffington Post website, Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, said: “The President’s plan for commercial competition will ultimately take us much farther and much faster, not only to the moon, but to Mars, the asteroids and beyond. Private companies will drive a very high level of safety because they will cease to exist if they do not.
“America’s capitalist engine drives reliability in our aircraft, our cars, our computers and will do so in space, as well. Private companies will also inject innovation and breakthrough technology into our space program because that is their ethos.”
Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said: “The commercial crew initiative will create thousands of new high-tech jobs, help open the space frontier with lower-cost launches, and inspire a new generation with high-profile missions. This initiative is on par with the government Airmail Act that spurred the growth of early aviation and led to today’s passenger airline industry, which generates billions of dollars annually for the American economy.”
He added: “Commercial crew will reduce the gap in US human spaceflight by using launch vehicles that are either already flying today or are close to launch, such as the Atlas, Taurus, and Falcon. To build orbital capsules for these existing launch vehicles is on a comparable level to the Gemini program in the 1960s, which required only about three years from contract signed to the first flight of a crew.”
However, President Obama’s plans are the subject of strong political opposition that could yet threaten the approval of the 2011 Budget.
Lawmakers from Alabama, Florida and Texas, the states that could suffer the most from job cuts related to the cancellation of Constellation, have come out strongly against the decision.
Richard Shelby, the Republican Senator for Alabama, stated: “The President’s proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of US human space flight.
“We cannot continue to coddle the dreams of rocket hobbyists and so-called ‘commercial’ providers who claim the future of US human space flight can be achieved faster and cheaper than Constellation. I have consistently stated the fallacy of believing the cure-all hype of these ‘commercial’ space companies, and my position has been supported time and again by both the experts and the facts.”
One study Shelby cited in his support was the recent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel report that stated concerns about the safety standards imposed on commercial vehicles.
