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<\/p>\nAs the transition from government-owned crew launch rockets to commercial providers arrives, NASA launch integration is in a very different position than it has been with other human spaceflight programs like Apollo and Shuttle.<\/p>\n
With all launches, hundreds of thousands of things have to align perfectly for a rocket to lift off. And many of those things aren\u2019t on the rocket but are nonetheless vital, like crew safety, escorts, security, crew rescue, crew lodging, quarantine, etc.\n<\/p>\n
Making sure all these various elements that have to be present for a launch \u2014 especially one with crew \u2014 are ready to support a mission is the job of launch integration.<\/p>\n
For Apollo and Shuttle, everything about a NASA human mission was owned or operated by NASA, and launch integration was a matter of coordinating between different departments and divisions within the same agency.<\/p>\n
But things are now different. NASA no longer owns the rocket. They don\u2019t own the spacecraft. They don\u2019t own the launch pad or the launch equipment. SpaceX does. And SpaceX is in charge of their property and the launch countdown and bringing those elements together.<\/p>\n
But NASA will still provide all those other things like crew rescue, security, escorts, crew quarters, and quarantine; and the agency has worked tirelessly with SpaceX to make sure everything needed for tomorrow is available and that the two organizations are coordinating together effectively.<\/p>\n
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Crew Dragon launches on the IFA flight from 39A \u2013 photo by Brady Kenniston for NSF\/L2<\/p>\n
Discussing these differences with NASASpaceflight is Steve Payne, the recently retired Commercial Crew Launch Integration Manager for NASA.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike back in the day when NASA had control of everything, the commercial provider, in this case SpaceX, owns the rocket. They own the capsule. They own the roads in their launch pad and all the assembly and testing of their rocket. That\u2019s all theirs. Anything inside the pad perimeter belongs to them.\u201d noted Mr. Payne.<\/p>\n
Space Shuttle models (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s quite different from how it used to be in the Shuttle days. So for launch integration from the NASA side, what we do is have in place of the institutional side of things to make sure we can support their launch. They\u2019re going to need things from the center.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo our job was to make sure that knowledge got passed on to the providers so they understood why we were asking for all of these things and why the contingencies existed. Those of us who have done this before many times were happy to pass it on, and they were happy to listen. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we first started, there were moments of \u2018Why are you asking for this?\u2019 But right now they\u2019re doing everything that we would have done that\u2019s still relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of launch integration includes emergency response; if something went wrong and the crew needed to be rescued at the pad, that\u2019s a NASA launch integration service provided to SpaceX by the Kennedy Space Center. \u201cSo we had to form up, field train, and equip a Pad Rescue Team. Should [the crew] get in trouble and need someone to go get them, all of that has to be put in place.\u201d<\/p>\n