NASA administrator Mike Griffin is working to define a role within the space program for a new breed of private rocket company, just as SpaceX prepares to solidify their position with a first launch.<\/p>\n
Griffin gave a personal glowing testimony for NASA\u2019s aim to work with commerical enterprise during Monday\u2019s press conference to announce plans to return to the Moon.
\n\u201cNASA has not had at its upper levels a manager or Administrator more supportive of commercial enterprise than I,\u201d stated Griffin at the unveiling of NASA\u2019s new lunar mission architecture. \u201cWe are baselining, in the out years past the retirement of the shuttle, commercial service to the Station. That is the only known and knowable, at this point, market for the entrepreneurs that I have to give.\u201d<\/p>\n
This public show of support for private space enterprise should certainly be heartening for SpaceX, the best positioned of the new private players to fulfill this vision. This month SpaceX announced plans and paying customers for its Falcon 9 launcher, capable of lifting payloads of up to 25 metric tons to low earth orbit. SpaceX founder Elon Musk listed ISS cargo and later crew transportation as one of the primary intended uses for the Falcon 9.<\/p>\n
Administrator Griffin\u2019s strong public show of support is unlikely to come as a surprise to those closely following his recent statements. At a speech before the AIAA Space 2005 Conference three weeks ago, Griffin stated that \u201cUtilizing the market offered by the International Space Station\u2019s requirements for cargo and crew will spur true competition in the private sector\u201d. Griffin further noted that a competitive ISS manned and unmanned resupply process should be established as official space policy. <\/p>\n
On Monday, Griffin reiterated that NASA would be starting a new procurement program this fall to try to stimulate the potential private market for ISS resupply. \u201cOur fondest desire would be to keep NASA on the very frontier of space activity, letting commercial providers fill in for those activities that are not frontier
\nactivities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will be putting some money where our mouth is.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, NASA is already directly engaged with SpaceX. In June, NASA and SpaceX signed a Space Act Agreement for the development of human spaceflight hardware. This Space Act Agreement initiates a collaborative R&D partnership that gives SpaceX access to NASA facilities, expertise and equipment. Indeed, the Falcon 9 specifications are remarkably appropriate for the launch requirements of the manned Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and unmanned ISS resupply modules announced by NASA on Monday. Clearly the Falcon 9 is being offered as a possible commercial alternative to the Solid Rocket Booster-derived Crew Launch Vehicle.<\/p>\n
SpaceX has many hurdles to pass before it becomes a viable option for NASA, however. SpaceX has yet to launch its first small payload on its single engine Falcon I. The first launch has recently been delayed until at least the end of October after one of the Falcon\u2019s new main-stage Merlin engines failed while under test in Texas. Even more daunting is the confidence-building process of \u201chuman rating\u201d the SpaceX launcher for manned space flight; a process that is without precedent for a private launch enterprise. SpaceX maintains that the Falcon rocket family has been designed from the beginning for human space flight, but clearly guidelines and confidence will have to be well established before a manned capsule with a NASA logo is launched.<\/p>\n
SpaceX will also face competition from the established, and Department of Defense supported, Atlas V and Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs). The US Government has made a serious commitment to supporting the EELV launch systems, and they have similar capabilities to both the proposed SRB-derived Crew Launch Vehicle and Falcon 9. The EELV\u2019s also have the added advantage that they are already flying. In his AIAA address, Griffin outlined an agreement he had reached with DoD Defense Research and Engineering Director Ronald Sega. Under this agreement, NASA agreed to utilise the EELV\u2019s for unmanned NASA launches where practical, including for ISS resupply missions. However, Griffin maintained a clause in the agreement that new commercially-developed launch capabilities may compete for these ISS missions.<\/p>\n
Clearly Griffin is aware of the risk of leveraging the private sector. \u201cIt is not acceptable for a publicly funded program not to have a way of meeting its mission requirements in the event that commercial operators do or don\u2019t materials,\u201d Griffin said on Monday, emphasizing that no part of the lunar mission architecture relies on a private space market. \u201cNo one would ever say that the government and the government Prime Contractor activities represent the most efficient use of the nation\u2019s resources; however, they do pretty much guarantee that we get a product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA administrator Mike Griffin is working to define a role within the space program for a new breed of private rocket company, just as SpaceX prepares to solidify their position with a first launch. Griffin gave a personal glowing testimony for NASA\u2019s aim to work with commerical enterprise during Monday\u2019s press conference to announce plans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[],"class_list":["post-42281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42281"}],"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=42281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}