Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: NASA commits to $7 billion SLS development; First SLS launch from KSC could slip a year

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 28, 2014 9:47:22 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA commits to $7 billion SLS development; First SLS launch from KSC could slip a year

August 27, 2014
RELEASE 14-229

NASA Completes Key Review of World's Most Powerful Rocket in Support of Journey to Mars
Artist concept of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) 70-metric-ton configuration launching to space. SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

NASA officials Wednesday announced they have completed a rigorous review of the Space Launch System (SLS) -- the heavy-lift, exploration class rocket under development to take humans beyond Earth orbit and to Mars -- and approved the program's progression from formulation to development, something no other exploration class vehicle has achieved since the agency built the space shuttle.
"We are on a journey of scientific and human exploration that leads to Mars," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "And we're firmly committed to building the launch vehicle and other supporting systems that will take us on that journey."
For its first flight test, SLS will be configured for a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit. In its most powerful configuration, SLS will provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons), which will enable missions even farther into our solar system, including such destinations as an asteroid and Mars.
This artist concept shows NASA's Space Launch System, or SLS, rolling to a launchpad at Kennedy Space Center at night. SLS will be the most powerful rocket in history, and the flexible, evolvable design of this advanced, heavy-lift launch vehicle will meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC
This decision comes after a thorough review known as Key Decision Point C (KDP-C), which provides a development cost baseline for the 70-metric ton version of the SLS of $7.021 billion from February 2014 through the first launch and a launch readiness schedule based on an initial SLS flight no later than November 2018.
Conservative cost and schedule commitments outlined in the KDP-C align the SLS program with program management best practices that account for potential technical risks and budgetary uncertainty beyond the program's control.
"Our nation is embarked on an ambitious space exploration program, and we owe it to the American taxpayers to get it right," said Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot, who oversaw the review process. "After rigorous review, we're committing today to a funding level and readiness date that will keep us on track to sending humans to Mars in the 2030s – and we're going to stand behind that commitment."
"The Space Launch System Program has done exemplary work during the past three years to get us to this point," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We will keep the teams working toward a more ambitious readiness date, but will be ready no later than November 2018."
The SLS, Orion, and Ground Systems Development and Operations programs each conduct a design review prior to each program's respective KDP-C, and each program will establish cost and schedule commitments that account for its individual technical requirements.
"We are keeping each part of the program -- the rocket, ground systems, and Orion -- moving at its best possible speed toward the first integrated test launch," said Bill Hill, director Exploration Systems Development at NASA. "We are on a solid path toward an integrated mission and making progress in all three programs every day."
"Engineers have made significant technical progress on the rocket and have produced hardware for all elements of the SLS program," said SLS program manager Todd May. "The team members deserve an enormous amount of credit for their dedication to building this national asset."
The program delivered in April the first piece of flight hardware for Orion's maiden flight, Exploration Flight Test-1 targeted for December. This stage adapter is of the same design that will be used on SLS's first flight, Exploration Mission-1.
Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans has all major tools installed and is producing hardware, including the first pieces of flight hardware for SLS. Sixteen RS-25 engines, enough for four flights, currently are in inventory at Stennis Space Center, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, where an engine is already installed and ready for testing this fall. NASA contractor ATK has conducted successful test firings of the five-segment solid rocket boosters and is preparing for the first qualification motor test.
SLS will be the world's most capable rocket. In addition to opening new frontiers for explorers traveling aboard the Orion capsule, the SLS may also offer benefits for science missions that require its use and can't be flown on commercial rockets.
The next phase of development for SLS is the Critical Design Review, a programmatic gate that reaffirms the agency's confidence in the program planning and technical risk posture.
For more information about SLS, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/sls
-end-

Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov

First SLS launch from KSC could slip a year
NASA is ready to move forward with the development of the Space Launch System -- an advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle that will provide an entirely new national capability for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit. NASA video
James Dean, FLORIDA TODAY8:22 p.m. EDT August 27, 2014

The agency had been targeting the uncrewed test flight of the Space Launch System, or SLS, by December 2017, and still hopes to beat the new, slower timeframe established after a more detailed review of technical progress and budgets.
"We will be there by November of 2018," said Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human spaceflight programs. "I look to my team to do better than that."
The rocket's new schedule came as NASA completed what it described as a major milestone, in which the agency formally committed to a specific budget and date for the first version of the launcher intended to send astronauts on missions around the moon, to an asteroid and eventually Mars.
NASA said Wednesday it has 70 percent confidence — the minimum level typically required for major development programs — that the rocket will be ready by late 2018, at a cost of about $7 billion between early 2014 and the first launch.
That cost doesn't include $2.7 billion spent earlier in the program, or $5.7 billion spent on systems whose development began even earlier under the Constellation program, which the Obama administration canceled in 2010 due to delays and budget increases.
All together, that's $15.4 billion to develop a rocket comprised of a new core stage initially powered by four space shuttle main engines and two five-segment solid rocket boosters, and an upper stage using a modified Delta IV rocket engine.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, one of the rocket's top advocates in Congress, said in a statement Wednesday that it was making good technical progress.
"But we need to keep the budget on track so NASA can meet an earlier readiness date — which I think can be done," he said.
NASA said the Constellation program's first rocket, Ares I, never reached the milestone SLS now has — called Key Decision Point C — committing to the cost and schedule goals and a so-called joint confidence level based on detailed analysis.
"This is a major step for SLS," said Gerstenmaier. "SLS is really the first major human spaceflight program to achieve this milestone."
The rocket expected to launch by 2018 will stand 321 feet tall and be able to lift 70 metric tons. It is intended to grow to 384 feet and an ability to lift 130 metric tons, becoming the most powerful rocket ever.
"We are on a journey of scientific and human exploration that leads to Mars," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "And we're firmly committed to building the launch vehicle and other supporting systems that will take us on that journey."
In addition to the SLS rocket, NASA is developing the Orion crew capsule — targeting a first test flight without a crew late this year — and ground systems including a launch pad at KSC. Those programs are expected to complete similar milestones by early next year.
The first SLS flight with astronauts is tentatively planned in 2021 or 2022. NASA did not say how a potential one-year delay in the first launch would affect the timing of a crewed mission.
Gerstenmaier said the public should not get too hung up on the first launch date because NASA is developing a system intended to fly for decades, ultimately enabling human missions to Mars.
Word of the first SLS launch potentially slipping to late 2018 came after repeated warnings by the Government Accountability Office that the program was at high risk of not being ready by late 2017.
The GAO also pointed out that NASA has not revealed how much the rocket's ongoing development will cost after the first launch, or how much it will cost to operate each year.
Gerstenmaier said NASA was "still refining and reviewing" those numbers.
Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

Copyright © 2014 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved.

NASA commits to $7 billion SLS development
08/27/2014 06:13 PM
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

After a detailed engineering and cost analysis, NASA managers have formally approved development of the Space Launch System -- SLS -- heavy-lift rocket, the most powerful booster ever attempted and a key element in the agency's long-range plans to send astronauts to nearby asteroids and, eventually, Mars, officials announced Wednesday.

The SLS development program is projected to cost $7 billion from February 2014 through the rocket's maiden flight, a November 2018 test launch carrying an uncrewed Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle, or MPCV, on a three-week-long shakedown mission beyond the moon and back to an ocean-splashdown on Earth.

That target date is a year later than originally envisioned when NASA first laid out a tentative schedule for initial SLS flights. But senior agency managers say the projected cost and launch target are what came out of a detail analysis incorporating a wide variety of factors, including the possibility of unforeseen engineering challenges.
Space Launch System rockets will come in at least two variants, one (shown above) initially capable of lifting 70-metric-ton payloads and the other a gargantuan mega booster capable of lifting 130 metric tons while generating 9.2 million pounds of thrust. (Credit: NASA)

When all of those factors were included, along with input from an independent review panel, computer analysis indicated a 70 percent chance of meeting the November 2018 target date. That was the goal in a "best practices" approach to program management.

"If we don't do anything, we basically have a 70 percent chance of getting to that date," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations. "Our intent is to go look at those (expected) problems and see what we can do to mitigate (them)."

The initial version of the SLS rocket, powered by four left-over space shuttle main engines and two upgraded shuttle-heritage solid-fuel boosters, will be capable of lifting payloads weighing up to 70 metric tons while generating 8.4 million pounds of thrust -- 10 percent more than the fabled Saturn 5 moon rocket that has long held the record as the world's most powerful launcher.

In its most powerful version, one utilizing advanced strap-on boosters and a high-energy upper stage, the SLS will be able to lift 130 metric tons while generating a staggering 9.2 million pounds of thrust.

"It's also important to remember that we're building a series of launch vehicles here, not just one," Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot told reporters. "This is for us the start of kind of a production model of how we're going to develop the vehicles we need to take folks beyond low-Earth orbit, moving from a 70-metric-ton vehicle for (the first test flight) to eventually a 130-metric ton rocket that will carry folks to Mars."

But as of today, the only actual missions that are covered by NASA's projected budget are three test flights: the December launch of an uncrewed Orion capsule atop a Delta 4 rocket; the first SLS test flight in 2018; and the first crewed test flight around 2021.

While the rockets are considered essential to deep space exploration missions like a proposed asteroid visit and eventual flights to Mars, no such missions are currently funded or even in detailed planning.

Critics have questioned the low projected flight rate of the new rocket -- one launch every two years or so -- and the wisdom of designing an expensive, heavy-lift rocket before the technical requirements of its eventual missions have been specified.

But NASA managers say the heavy-lift rocket is needed for any voyages to deep space targets and they believe the program is sustainable over the long haul.

The decision to proceed with development of the new rocket came after a review known as Key Decision Point C, "which provides a development cost baseline for the 70-metric ton version of the SLS of $7.021 billion from February 2014 through the first launch and a launch readiness schedule based on an initial SLS flight no later than November 2018," NASA said in a statement.

The agency said "conservative cost and schedule commitments" take into consideration "potential technical risks and budgetary uncertainty beyond the program's control."

Lightfoot said in the statement that "we owe it to the American taxpayers to get it right."

"After rigorous review, we're committing today to a funding level and readiness date that will keep us on track to sending humans to Mars in the 2030s -- and we're going to stand behind that commitment," he said.
A comparison of the two versions of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket NASA intends to use for deep space exploration. (Credit: NASA)

Gerstenmaier said it had taken engineers three years to reach the development milestone and promised the rocket "will be ready no later than November 2018."

The SLS rockets are gargantuan by current standards. The 70-ton variant will weigh some 5.5 million pounds and stand 321 feet tall with a hydrogen-fueled first stage powered by four modified space shuttle main engines, now known as RS-25s, and two five-segment solid-fuel boosters.

The initial SLS variant will be equipped with an interim upper stage based on one used by United Launch Alliance's Delta 4 rocket.

The first SLS launch in 2018, known as Exploration Mission 1, will send an uncrewed Orion capsule into a stable orbit beyond the moon and then "bring it back to Earth to demonstrate the integrated system performance of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft's re-entry and landing prior to a crewed flight," NASA said in a fact sheet.

The second SLS flight -- Exploration Mission 2 -- will be a crewed voyage carrying four astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo program.

The more powerful variant of the SLS will stand 384 feet tall, weight 6.5 million pounds and generate 9.2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. Using the same Boeing-built core stage as the less powerful version, the mega rocket will be equipped with advanced, more-powerful strap on boosters and a high energy upper stage possibly using modified J-2X engines based on designs originally developed for the second and third stages of the Saturn 5.

NASA currently has 16 shuttle main engines in storage, enough for four SLS flights. Beyond that, NASA will have to restart the RS-25 production line. The SLS rockets will be built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

The decision to proceed with development of the SLS follows more than a decade of national debate, uncertain politics and shifting national priorities dating back to the 2003 Columbia disaster.

In the wake of the shuttle's destruction, the Bush administration ordered NASA to complete the International Space Station and retire the shuttle fleet by the end of the decade and to focus instead on building new rockets and spacecraft for a return to the moon in the early 2020s. Antarctica-style moon bases were envisioned, serving as a stepping stone to eventual flights to Mars.

But the Obama administration ultimately concluded NASA's Constellation moon program was over budget and unsustainable and ordered a dramatic change of course, implementing a two-pronged human space policy.

For routine ferry flights carrying astronaut to and from the International Space Station, NASA was told to encourage development of space taxis operated by one or more private companies on a commercial basis. NASA plans to award development contracts in the next few weeks, with initial government-sponsored flights to the station expected in late 2017.

At the same time, the agency was told to plan long-range exploration missions using its own spacecraft to visit an asteroid in the mid 2020s with a flight to at least orbit Mars in the mid 2030s. More recently, the administration specified an asteroid retrieval mission to robotically haul a small space rock back to the vicinity of the moon for hands-on study.

NASA retained the Constellation program's Orion capsule for deep space exploration, but the administration did not initially endorse designing a new heavy lift rocket. After intense pressure from space advocates on Capitol Hill, however, NASA was given the go-ahead to begin planning for a new booster. The SLS was the result.

© 2014 William Harwood/CBS News

NASA deep-space rocket, SLS, to launch in 2018
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NASA / HO/AFP/File - The US space agency's powerful deep-space rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), aims to blast off for the first time in 2018, NASA says

The US space agency's powerful deep-space rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), aims to blast off for the first time in 2018, NASA said Wednesday.
The SLS has been in development for three years already, and when finished it should propel spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit and eventually launch crew vehicles to Mars by the 2030s.
NASA has now completed a thorough review of the project, signifying formal space agency commitment to the 70 metric ton version of the SLS at a cost of $7.021 billion from 2014 to 2018.
"The program is making real, significant progress," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA.
"We will keep the teams working toward a more ambitious readiness date, but will be ready no later than November 2018."
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), however issued a report last month that called into question the space's agency's current funding plan for SLS, saying it "may be $400 million short of what the program needs."
The GAO also raised concerns about the development schedule and how engineers will integrate hardware that was designed to fly on a cancelled NASA program known as Constellation that would have returned humans to the Moon.
Gerstenmaier said NASA was taking those concerns into account and is seeking to address the GAO's recommendations.
The SLS is NASA's first heavy-lift launch vehicle in over 40 years, and the space agency has estimated total costs in developing the first of three SLS variants at $12 billion.
The SLS will "provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons), which will enable missions even farther into our solar system, including such destinations as an asteroid and Mars," NASA said.
The Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle is a separate project under development that aims to launch atop the SLS and carry people on a months-long journey to the Red Planet.
The first space flight test for Orion is set for December.
"We are moving. We are going now," said NASA associate administrator Robert Lightfoot.
"After rigorous review, we're committing today to a funding level and readiness date that will keep us on track to sending humans to Mars in the 2030s -? and we?re going to stand behind that commitment."

Copyright © 2014 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.

NASA's New Mega-Rocket for Deep Space Will Be Launch Ready by 2018
by Miriam Kramer, Space.com Staff Writer | August 28, 2014 07:19am ET

NASA's Space Launch System will represent the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions. Image released August 27, 2014.
Credit: NASA/MSFC View full size image
NASA new mega-rocket, a towering booster designed for deep space missions, will be ready for its first test flight no later than November 2018, space agency officials announced Wednesday (Aug. 27).
It's possible that the Space Launch System rocket test flight could launch as early as December 2017, but NASA officials have committed to having the rocket ready for flight be the end of 2018 to be safe. That extra wiggle room should let the space agency cope with scheduling and funding issues as they crop up in the future, NASA officials said in a teleconference with reporters.
The SLS will be the largest rocket ever constructed and it is designed to send humans deeper into space than ever before. The huge launcher — which will stand at 400-feet-tall (122 meters) in its final configuration — could deliver NASA astronauts to an asteroid and even Mars sometime in the future. [See images of NASA's SLS rocket design]
NASA's giant Space Launch System, or SLS, is derived from proven technology used for decades in America's moon program and the space shuttle. See how NASA's Space Launch System mega-rocket works in this Space.com infographic.
Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com
View full size image
"Our nation is embarked on an ambitious space exploration program, and we owe it to the American taxpayers to get it right," NASA associate administrator Robert Lightfoot, said in a statement. "After rigorous review, we're committing today to a funding level and readiness date that will keep us on track to sending humans to Mars in the 2030s – and we're going to stand behind that commitment."
NASA expects that SLS will cost a total of $7 billion from February 2014 through November 2018. For its first test flight, SLS will fly out of low-Earth orbit with an unmanned Orion space capsule.
The SLS team just passed a major design review, which will allow the program to move forward with design plans.
As seen in this artist's illustration, SLS will represent the most powerful rocket in history. Image released Aug. 27, 2014.
Credit: NASA/MSFC
View full size image
The 2018 date is a reflection of modeling done by a review board, which suggested that the new date is likely more attainable, NASA officials said during a news conference today (Aug. 27). The review board looked at the SLS plan and brought up problems that could arise during the building of the rocket system, possibly causing a change in schedule.
"They're [the review board] telling us that if we don't do anything, we basically have a 70 percent chance of getting to that date," William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate, said during the news conference. "Our intent and the team's intent at Marshall [Space Flight Center] is to go look at those problems and see what we can do to mitigate those problems."
"There are probably some other problems that aren't even identified by the Standing Review Board that will come up," Gerstenmaier added. "Our job as a management team is to look at those problems, figure out ways to work those ahead of time, and proactively work those as they come about."
It's possible that the first SLS flight could occur before the 2018 target if the team works to head off any potential issues before they occur, according to Gerstenmaier.

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