"Heavy-Lift yes, EELV no?"

Jeff Foust
SpacePolitics.com

"While the Augustine committee wraps up its final report, NASA hasn’t been standing still waiting for it. In an article in Monday’s issue of The Space Review, I wrote about Bolden’s statements in his Space Transportation Association speech on Thursday about what NASA’s internal planning:"

"While Bolden didn’t mention any specifics in Washington, he did let slip a few details about what might be included on Monday at the IAC in Daejon, South Korea, Flightglobal.com reports. Bolden was clearly interested in developing a heavy-lift vehicle, saying that NASA was “costing” such a launcher, which the report believes is the Ares 5 “Lite” vehicle mentioned in the Augustine committee report instead of a shuttle-derived alternative or even simply re-estimating the development cost of the Ares 5 itself."

Read the Post, HERE.

X-37 reported as scheduled for launch

By Leonard David
SPACE.com

It has been a long haul to the launch pad, but the U.S. Air Force and Boeing are gearing up to loft the X-37B – an unpiloted military space plane, SPACE.com has learned.

Tucked inside the shroud of an Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), the winged craft will be boosted out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, orbit the Earth and then make an auto-pilot landing in California.

The X-37B OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle 1) is currently on the launch manifest for January 2010, explained U.S. Air Force Captain Elizabeth Aptekar, who works in media operations for the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.

"The vehicle is ready for the shipping process, which includes minor close-out activities," Aptekar told SPACE.com. "The vehicle will ship at the conclusion of the pre-ship activities ... which should be approximately 60 days before its launch date."

Years ago, the X-37B was originally slated to be deployed from the payload bay of a space shuttle. But following the tragic Columbia accident, the craft was transferred to a Delta rocket, and then later geared to be sent aloft via the Atlas V EELV.

Read the details HERE.

Report that EELV is viable as Ares alternative 'not accurate,' Coppinger reports

Delta IV Heavy

NASA via Rob Coppenger @ FlightGlobal's Hyperbola, following good journalist practice, has posted a correction to reports first headlined by NASASpaceFlight.com. The erroneous conclusion drawn from the Areospace Corporation study was then picked up by Lunar Pioneer Research Group's blog Lunar Networks and has since been withdrawn.

"NASA managers are reviewing an independent analysis," NASA told Hyperbola Wednesday.

Headlines had appeared reporting Areospace Corporation's study concluded that Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) boosters were adequate to support NASA's Constellation, program, "(u)nder evaluation was not accurate," NASA told Coppenger. "The Aerospace report...is not finished."

Lunar Network reported yesterday that a study "by the Aerospace Corporation "conducted at the request of NASA to disprove the viability of an option to switch Orion to an alternative Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) has found both the Atlas V Heavy and Delta IV Heavy are capable of launching Orion on both ISS and Lunar missions."

Lunar Networks, especially on behalf Lunar Pioneer Research Group, regrets the error.

Coppenger recommends a more thorough reading of theAerospace Corporation's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel 2008 annual Report.

"While is says nothing about EELV suitability for launching Orion, " Coppenger writes, "there is one entry that is very interesting. Acting (NASA) administrator Christopher Scolese is quoted as saying, when asked by the (Panel) "what was harder than you expected."

"Designing Ares and Orion to have improved operational characteristics over our Shuttle and EELV system," Scolese is quoted.

Coppenger also recommends reading former NASA Administrator Michale Griffin's answers to the Panel's question picked up in their Annual Report.

Obama Team told EELVs can save NASA

Robert Block - The Write Stuff - Orlando Sentinel

CAPE CANAVERAL - For more than three years, NASA chief Mike Griffin has maintained that the safest, most reliable and affordable way to return astronauts to the moon is on the Ares I, a rocket that he helped design from parts of the space shuttle. Alternatives, he insisted, such as modified military rockets, were simply not capable of carrying humans to the moon and beyond.
But interviews, as well as documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, indicate that military rockets can lift astronauts safely into space - and to the moon - for billions less and possibly sooner than NASA's current designs.

While it's not clear how the next administration wants to proceed with NASA's lunar ambitions, one aerospace-industry official confirmed that NASA recently asked Kennedy Space Center to start examining the impacts of scrapping NASA's own Ares I rocket design and switching to modifiedversions of the military's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets as the agency's next-generation human spaceships.

Already, Atlas V and Delta IV - also known as Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles, or EELVs - successfully blast NASA probes to Mars and beyond and put top secret multi-billion-dollar military spy satellites into clandestine orbits from launch pads in Florida and California. There have been a total of 21 EELV flights since the first Atlas V and Delta IV launches occurred in 2002.

Read more HERE.