Fwd: NASA officials seek commercial interest for surplus facilities

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: February 10, 2014 10:53:23 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA officials seek commercial interest for surplus facilities

 

 

 

Feb. 10, 2014   |  

NASA officials seek commercial interest for surplus facilities

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Tom Engler, deputy director of KSC's Center Planning and Development office, stands inside the Vehicle Assembly Building next to the mobile launcher platform in High Bay 1. High Bay 1 is one of the areas that will soon become available to commercial vendors. / Craig Bailey/FLORIDA TODAY

Written by
James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

Public hearing
The House Subcommittee on Government Operations, chaired by U.S. Rep. John Mica, will host a public field hearing at 9 a.m. today at the KSC Visitor Complex's Debus Center titled "Assessing NASA's Underutilized Real Property Assets at the Kennedy Space Center." 

Scheduled witnesses include Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno, commander, Air Force 45th Space Wing and Bob Cabana, director, Kennedy Space Center.

 

CAPE CANAVERAL — Access platforms more than 200 feet up in the Vehicle Assembly Building extended around the tip of the last space shuttle's external tank, allowing workers to traverse the length of High Bay 1 during launch preparations a few years ago.

That level now overlooks a canyon that drops to a mobile launch platform stationed below and rises as high to the roof, where mist formed on a recent rainy afternoon.

NASA will soon invite companies to fill the void with a commercial rocket, or rockets, that could be assembled for launches from Kennedy Space Center.

"The taxpayers invested in the building, it's available, so we're trying to make it available for a commercial company to take advantage of," said Tom Engler, deputy director of KSC's Center Planning and Development office.

The vacant high bay and several mobile launch platforms are the latest surplus former shuttle facilities NASA hopes to transition to new users, but notably also the last of the really big ones.

Through deals completed or nearing completion, the major facilities are now nearly all accounted for, three years after NASA first solicited interest in them.

"We're nearing the end of the big capabilities," said Engler. "As we get over this hump of these big agreements, now we're looking longer-term on how we bring more of the space capabilities and space companies to the center to build that multi-user spaceport."

Focus will begin to shift to opening up sections of facilities where NASA has extra space, like the one that used to house International Space Station components, and use of vacant land to support potential clean energy and space manufacturing projects.

NASA this month expects to wrap up agreements for partners to take over KSC's biggest pieces of "underutilized" infrastructure: the three-mile shuttle runway and one of two former shuttle launch pads.

Discussions with Space Florida to operate the runway have dragged on since June.

The deal is complex, Engler said, given the facility's size and Space Florida's request for land that could be developed to help attract commercial tenants.

"It's still moving forward, and I think going to be a very powerful partnership," he said.

Negotiations are moving faster on a long-term lease of launch pad 39A to SpaceX, which NASA selected in December.

SpaceX is already inspecting the pad under an interim agreement. Modifications needed to launch Falcon 9 rockets as soon as 2015 could start after a lease is signed.

NASA is overhauling KSC's other pad, 39B, for a planned late 2017 first launch of its giant Space Launch System exploration rocket, and potentially use by commercial rockets.

The center's three shuttle hangars, called Orbiter Processing Facilities or OPFs, all have new occupants lined up.

The Boeing Co. last month announced a military space plane it built and supports would move into OPF-1. NASA later confirmed the deal with the Air Force's classified X-37B program also included the adjacent OPF-2.

The site of the first major partnership announced back in 2011 was OPF-1, where Boeing plans to assemble its CST-100 commercial crew capsule.

Agreements for some lesser-known facilities include: 

• Melbourne-based Craig Technologies moved into the NASA Shuttle Logistics Depot in Cape Canaveral, where it will operate and maintain about 1,600 pieces of NASA specialized equipment for at least five years.

• PaR Systems of Shoreview, Minn., has a 15-year lease to use Hangar N at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, including equipment used for non-destructive testing.

• United Paradyne Corp. of Santa Maria, Calif., which specializes in handling rocket and spacecraft fuel, agreed to a 15-year lease of the Hypergolic Maintenance Facility (South).

• BRS Aerospace, of Miami, inked a 10-year lease to use the Parachute Refurbishment Facility.

Sierra Nevada Corp. recently said it wanted to process Dream Chaser mini-shuttles in the Operations and Checkout facility, near where NASA's Orion exploration capsule is being assembled, but there's no formal commitment yet.

In a presentation last May, KSC Director Bob Cabana said facilities being considered for partnerships totaled nearly 630,000 square feet with a replacement value of nearly $761.9 million.

Another million square feet worth $412.7 million was slated for demolition.

NASA believes the facilities it has not offered to partners or added to a demolition list are necessary — or might be — to support the SLS rocket and Orion. 

But the agency continues to face questions about whether it is doing enough to shed aging and costly infrastructure. A congressional subcommittee plans to explore that subject during a 9 a.m. hearing today at KSC.

"The federal government is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars of assets in these facilities that could be used to create jobs for our community," said U.S. Rep. John Mica, chair of the House Subcommittee on Government Operations, in a statement Friday.

In a report last year, NASA's inspector general noted that Kennedy is holding on to facilities used to recover shuttle solid rocket boosters, even though there are no plans to recover SLS boosters through at least 2021. Annual cost: Nearly $2.6 million.

Meanwhile, work will continue to attract more outside partners to the center, perhaps on a smaller scale.

"We've got a lot of work left to do and are looking forward to that next phase of continuing the transition to a multi-user spaceport," said Engler. "You see kind of a whole world opening up in front of you here as we continue that transition from that single-program facility that we've been for the last 40 years, to one that supports all forms of spaceflight activity."

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

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