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\u201cWe have selected three companies that will help keep us on track to end the outsourcing of human spaceflight and create high-paying jobs in Florida and elsewhere across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the commercial crew drive will only make a slight impact into the thousands of jobs lost under General Bolden\u2019s tenure at the helm of NASA \u2013 most notably via the retirement of the Space Shuttle \u2013 none of the winners have any plans to launch from KSC\u2019s famous Complex 39 pads.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/A6103.jpg\" "\\"A610\\"")
While Boeing\u2019s CST-100 will be processed in a KSC Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) and Dream Chaser is expected to land at KSC\u2019s Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) \u2013 and may opt to be processed in one of the two available OPFs \u2013 only ATK\u2019s Liberty launch vehicle was expected to use a large collection of KSC facilities.<\/p>\nLiberty \u2013 which was the subject of a large PR campaign, including \u201cHollywood-style\u201d youtube videos, social media events aplenty and adverts on blog sites \u2013 failed to achieve its advancement from an unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) to commercial crew effort funded with NASA money.<\/p>\n
Space Technology
<\/path>SpaceX <\/path>Space Shuttle models <\/path>\n (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n
Ahead of Friday\u2019s decision, only four companies were in the running with a realistic shot of the limited NASA funding for the CCiCAP initiative, the three eventual winners, and Liberty. In the end, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Directorate William Gerstenmaier opted to award Boeing with $460m, SpaceX with $440 and SNC with $212.5m.<\/p>\n
The source selection document, explaining the award process, is expected within 10 days.<\/p>\n
The Winners:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Z78.jpg\" "\\"Z78\\"")
SpaceX are the current leaders in their commercial crew efforts, not least because they have already successfully flown the cargo version of their Dragon spacecraft to the ISS.<\/p>\nUsing an upgraded Falcon 9 (Version 1.1), SpaceX are aiming to launch a crewed demonstration flight \u2013 not to the ISS \u2013 by mid-2015, from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral. This date is based on funding expectations and a smooth test schedule.<\/p>\n
For CCiCAP, the $440m award comprises of payments throughout 14 milestones, that will culminate in the integrated Critical Design Review (CDR). The funding period is also expected to cover a pad abort test and an in-flight abort test.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Z79.jpg\" "\\"Z79\\"")
\u201cThis is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration,\u201d said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk. \u201cSpaceX, along with our partners at NASA, will continue to push the boundaries of space technology to develop the safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown.\u201d<\/p>\nOther key areas of upgrading their Dragon spacecraft to a crew vehicle includes the installation of seats for seven astronauts, and the testing and installation of an advanced launch escape system \u2013 with powered abort possibilities from launch pad to orbit.<\/p>\n
SpaceX note they will demonstrate that Dragon will be able to escape a launch-pad emergency by firing integrated SuperDraco engines to carry the spacecraft safely to the ocean. The in-flight abort test will task Dragon to escape at the moment of maximum aerodynamic drag, again by firing the SuperDraco thrusters to carry the spacecraft a safe distance from the rocket.<\/p>\n
Click here for SpaceX Dragon Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/dragon\/<\/p>\n
Boeing have been steadily working through their CCDev-2 (Commercial Crew) contract milestones \u2013 worth over $92m \u2013 centered around their CST-100 capsule, a vehicle configurable to carry up to seven crew\/passengers or an equivalent combination of passengers and pressurized cargo to LEO destinations, including the ISS.<\/p>\n
Click here for Boeing CST-100 Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/?s=CST-100<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Z77.jpg\" "\\"Z77\\"")
This vehicle will be using the Atlas V launch vehicle, launching from SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral. NASA estimate that a crewed demonstration flight could occur as early as mid 2016, again based on long term funding expectations.<\/p>\n\u201cThis award will enable us to build on the successes achieved in our Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) and CCDev-2 work for effective development through Critical Design Review, as we progress toward human rating and certification,\u201d said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to providing a complete end-to-end transportation service to support NASA crew transportation to and from the International Space Station (ISS), and fostering a growing market for commercial transportation to other low Earth orbit destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boeing have been tasked with 19 milestones for their $460m award, culminating in an integrated critical design review milestone, along with significant propulsion system, avionics, and wind tunnel development and testing.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Z421.jpg\" "\\"Z42\\"")
The CST-100\u2019s primary landing site will be on land, with a specific landing site in work. Successful landing system tests have already been carried out by Boeing this year.<\/p>\nThey are also a confirmed tenant at KSC, with work in the early stages of setting up CST-100\u2032s new home, inside the former Shuttle Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF-3), following a NASA agreement with Space Florida \u2013 the State\u2019s aerospace economic development agency \u2013 last October.<\/p>\n
SNC class themselves as the complete system provider and claim to have demonstrated significant progress maturing design and development of the Dream Chaser Space System (DCSS), which saw them become one of the winners of the CCDev-2 contract award, resulting in $80m of funds being provided from NASA.<\/p>\n
The Dream Chaser would launch atop of an Atlas V \u2013 building on studies which range back several years \u2013 again from the Atlas\u2019 home pad of SLC-41.<\/p>\n
Dream Chaser \u2013 which is a reusable lifting body vehicle based on the form of NASA Langley\u2019s HL-20 spaceplane concept from the 1980s \u2013 can land on a conventional runway, unlike all of its capsule-based competitors. The plan is for Dream Chaser to land at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at KSC.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Z411.jpg\" "\\"Z411\\"")
\u201cSNC, as the owner and prime contractor for the Dream Chaser Space System, on behalf of all of our industry, academic, and NASA Center teaming partners would like to thank NASA for showing the confidence in us and for all its efforts to maintain the vital Commercial Crew Program as part of its plan for the future of space transportation,\u201d noted Mark Sirangelo, Corporate Vice President and head of SNC\u2019s Space Systems.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are very pleased to have been awarded this amount of funding as part of NASA\u2019s ongoing effort to create a commercial human transportation system to low Earth orbit. This award will allow our Program to continue to make great strides in the development of the Dream Chaser Space System.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Z84.jpg\" "\\"Z84\\"")
\u201cWe want to express our appreciation to all of those that have provided great support in our efforts, including everyone within our organization and our terrific external team partners, the NASA personnel assigned to our efforts and throughout the NASA Centers and our federal, state, and local government representatives.\u201d<\/p>\nDream Chaser has passed several major milestones during its CCDev-2 testing, of which there are 19 milestones \u2013 the latter of which is listed as the Free Flight Test, which will be a piloted Flight test from a carrier aircraft to characterize handling qualities and approach and landing. This test is planned for later this year.<\/p>\n
With the smaller $212.5m award, SNC are not expected to take Dream Chaser as far as the CDR stage of development \u2013 although it has already passed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Click here for SNC Dream Chaser Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/?s=SNC<\/p>\n
Upcoming work revolves around Design and Development, with tasks such as Program Implementation, and Integrated System System Baseline Baseline Review, two Integrated System Safety Analysis reviews, and a Certification Plan.<\/p>\n
Testing will focus on the Engineering Test Article Flight, using the same Dream Chaser that first took flight this year under a Captive Carry test.<\/p>\n
SNC will also carry out Wind Tunnel Risk Reduction tasks, Spacecraft Subsystem Risk Reduction tasks, Main Main Propulsion Risk Reduction Propulsion Risk Reduction tasks, and work on their Reaction Control System Risk Reduction effort.<\/p>\n
Full dedicated articles will follow over the coming weeks on each of the CCiCAP vehicles.<\/p>\n
(Images: L2 Content, NASA CCDev, SNC, ULA, Boeing)<\/p>\n
(NSF and L2 are providing full transition level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS\/CRS\/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles. <\/p>\n
(Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to view how you can access the best space flight content on the entire internet.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative award winners were announced on Friday, with SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) all winning agency money to develop their vehicles to the next stage of providing domestic access to the International Space Station (ISS) for US astronauts. CCiCAP: The follow-on to the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4144,8996,4055,1565,1395,970,9079,8894,316],"class_list":["post-40054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-atk","tag-ccdev","tag-ccicap","tag-cst-100","tag-dragon","tag-dream-chaser","tag-liberty","tag-snc","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}