Obama's move to end Constellation prompts industrial base questions

December 1972 - Apollo 17 launch viewed from the launch tower. This was the only night launch of the Apollo-Saturn era; the U.S. original "Heavy Lift," was also the last Saturn V to carry humans into space. The Saturn V (configuration) was used again to launch an unmanned Skylab into space. Like Apollo 7, crews for America's first space station (and for the Apollo-Soyuz demonstration of 1975) were flown on Saturn 1B boosters, using only the first and second stages. [NASA/Apollo 17 Surface Journal-Scan by Kipp Teague].

Amy Klamper
Space News

Industry advocates are voicing concern with U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s Moon-bound Constellation program and the threat it poses to America’s aerospace work force and U.S. strategic missile arsenals, but Defense Department officials said the two agencies are forging a plan to sustain the nation’s solid-rocket motor industrial base.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) is among those railing against Obama’s proposal to scrap NASA’s plan to replace its space shuttle fleet with new rockets and spacecraft in favor of relying on commercial crew taxis to get astronauts to the international space station and back.

“This is not money-saving. This is having some kind of half-baked scheme that we can commercialize this,” said Bishop, whose district is home to ATK Space Systems, the Magna, Utah-based solid-rocket motor manufacturer that is building the first stage of Constellation’s Ares 1 rocket and major subsystems for its launch abort system. ATK executives told investors Feb. 4 that canceling Ares 1 would cost the company $650 million in contract backlog.

While Bishop’s congressional district stands to lose 2,000 jobs under Obama’s proposal, the outspoken U.S. missile defense proponent said there is more at stake than northern Utah’s employment outlook. Shutting down Constellation, he said, threatens the nation’s ability to produce solid-rocket motors needed for ballistic missiles.

“It’s not a spigot you can turn on and off,” Bishop said in a Feb. 9 interview. “Once they’re out the door and in the unemployment lines, they’re not coming back.”

ATK and Sacramento, Calif.-based Aerojet are the only U.S. companies producing large solid-rocket motors for space launchers and strategic missiles.

Gary Payton, a retired military astronaut and former senior NASA official who serves as U.S. Air Force deputy under secretary for space programs, told reporters Feb. 4 the service was still assessing the industrial base impacts of canceling Constellation.

Read the article, HERE.

Successful Taurus II second stage ground test

Artist's rendering of Taurus II on the launch pad at Wallops Flight Facility, VA

Orbital Sciences Corp. has Begus development testing for the medium-Ccass Taurus II launch vehicle in preparation for its first flight in 2011. Alliant Techsystems and the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) successfully ground tested the second stage motor of the Taurus II at AEDC in Tennessee.

The solid-fuel CASTOR 30 motor, supplied to by ATK Space Systems was test fired for around 150 seconds, producing 72,000 lbs. of max thrust. To accurately test performance the static fire test was conducted in a vacuum chamber designed to simulate conditions at over 30 kilometers altitude.

"We are very pleased with the results. The Castor 30 motor performed according to the specifications built into the design of the Taurus II rocket," said Brent Collins, Orbital's Taurus II Program Manager. "The ground test of the Castor 30 motor is the first major event in the testing phase of the Taurus II development program, having completed the engineering design and procurement work over the past year and a half."

"In addition to the second stage testing, we will soon begin the testing process for the rocket's liquid fuel first stage at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi."

ATK pink-slips 550

ATK Space Systems division undergoing preparations for test of
new five-segment SRB for Constellation Ares, last July

Paul Foy

(AP)

Salt Lake City — The phase-out of the space shuttle program brought 550 layoffs on Tuesday to a Utah company that makes the booster rockets.

ATK Space Systems said it was handing out pink slips to engineers, factory workers and others at three Utah locations.

AP full story, HERE.

Ares I SRB test flawless

ATK employees and guests of ATK and NASA watch from about about a mile away as ATK conducts the first full-scale motor test for the Ares I five-segment solid rocket booster. It went off without a hitch at 1 pm Thursday. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Crossed-fingers for 5-segment SRB test

Mike Kahn, executive at ATK Space Systems, talks about the Ares 1 First Stage rocket motor Thursday morning at the ATK facility west of Brigham City. (Al Hartmann / The Salt Lake Tribune)

Steve Oberbeck
The Salt Lake Tribune

Promontory - Standing near the 12-foot-diameter nozzle of a giant booster motor, NASA's Alex Priskos conceded he was feeling a few butterflies as he waited for the motor to be test-fired early Thursday afternoon.

Utah's Alliant Techsystems, which is developing the motor for the first stage of NASA's Ares 1 rocket, is scheduled to test fire its first developmental motor at 1 p.m.

"I'm always excited and always feel a few butterflies when a motor is tested," Priskos said. "But this motor is going to work well. We've learned a lot using similar motors to launch the space shuttle."

Although strikingly similar to the four-segment booster motors that for years have been used to propel the space shuttle into orbit, the new booster was built with an additional segment to provide more thrust -- and to allow more weight to be lifted into orbit.

According to NASA's Web site, "the Ares I first stage is a single, five-segment reusable solid-rocket booster derived from the Space Shuttle Program's reusable solid-rocket motor, which burns a specially formulated and shaped solid propellant."

Priskos said the Ares 1 rocket will be much safer for astronauts than the space shuttle it will replace. The Ares 1 is scheduled for its maiden flight in 2015.

Former astronaut Jeff Ashby, who now serves as ATK's vice president of business development, said one of the segments of the test motor was flown on the space shuttle the last time he went into orbit.

"It dropped into the ocean and was recovered," he said. "I get a kick out of thinking about that."

Read the full feature, HERE.

ATK to test Ares five-Segment SRB

Assembled five-segment solid rocket booster for Ares 1,
July 1 (NASA/ATK/RedOrbit/Astroengine)

Promontory, Utah - Alliant Techsystems and NASA "will make history," August 25 as the new Ares I five-segment SRB first stage is tested, "marking the start of a new era of space exploration."

Details and Specs HERE.

Ares I new SRB chutes successfully tested

Sheena McFarland
Salt Lake City Tribune

"The three parachutes, each with a 150-foot diameter or about half the size of a football field, slowed a 41,500-pound weight that simulates the size of the Ares I first-stage booster. The parachutes are the largest of their type in the world. The weight and chutes were dropped from a C-17 aircraft at 10,000 feet, and successfully deployed at 4,500 feet above the U.S. Army's Yuma Testing Ground.

"This test marks yet another successful milestone in the development of NASA's Ares I launch vehicle," said Charlie Precourt, ATK Space Systems vice president and general manager of Space Launch Systems. "The teamwork between NASA and the contractors ensures continued success in the development of the next generation crew launch vehicle."

"United Space Alliance at the Kennedy Space Center, who subcontracted with ATK, manufactured the parachutes. Designers modeled the parachutes after the 136-foot diameter ones that currently slow the solid rocket boosters from the space shuttle enough to splash down into the Atlantic Ocean. The new chutes also will slow the Ares I rocket for an Atlantic landing, where the rockets will be recovered, refurbished and reused. "

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