The RAND Corporation this week released a report by the National Security Space Launch Requirements Panel that evaluated the status of the EELV program and military launch efforts in general. (The panel was mandated by a provision of the FY05 defense authorization bill.) The panel’s overarching conclusion is that, from a technical standpoint, the two EELV vehicles are excellent and will be able to serve national security needs through at least 2020 (and perhaps “much longer”, in the words of study chairman Forrest McCartney, who present the report’s results at a briefing Wednesday), but that the government needs to start preparing now for some hard decisions about the program in the post-2010 timeframe.
The biggest issue, as one might expect, is whether to downselect to a single EELV family, either the Atlas 5 or the Delta 4, as a cost-saving measure. The panel made no recommendation whether or not to do this, saying the government needs more data on how much it costs to operate the vehicles, as well as their overall reliability. McCartney said no decision on this should be made before 2010. He did add, though, that “assured access”, one of the central mantras of the overall EELV program, doesn’t necessarily require two vehicles, since in many cases payloads are designed to fly on one EELV family or the other, but not both. The formation (or not) of the United Launch Alliance also doesn’t play a factor one way or another; in fact, McCartney said that the panel didn’t take a position on the ULA since it was announced just as the panel started work in May 2005, and they assumed that the ULA would have been approved or rejected by the time they finished their work…
The panel also brought up some secondary issues with the EELV program and assured access, including both vehicle’s reliance on the RL-10 upper-stage engine, domestic production of the RD-180 engine used on the Atlas 5, and the need to develop a heavy variant of the Atlas 5, as well as future needs for heavy variants of both vehicles in general (current manifests show that all but one of the heavy launches planned after about 2013 are for the TSAT communications satellite program, a program that is still in the earliest stages and could thus conceivably be redefined so that it doesn’t need a launch on an EELV Heavy.)
The panel also examined small launch vehicles, in particular the new interest in Operationally Responsive Space (ORS). While the panel supported the development work in progress now, like DARPA’s Falcon program, the panel said it was “too soon” to go into full-scale production of such vehicles, in part because there are still many questions about the requirements of such vehicles, the overall concept of operations, and the types of ORS payloads that would use these vehicles. (Questions that mirror those about ORS in general within some sectors of the military.)
since in many cases payloads are designed to fly on one EELV family or the other, but not both.
How was this allowed to happen? Doesn’t it defeat one of the major reasons the Air Force decided to develop two EELVs?
Especially if the analysis of their technical excellence is correct, the best solution going forward is to increase the market to the point where both vehicles _can_ be supported. If the Delta-II were retired (as I recall, that was the original plan), and the EELVs used for a larger part of the VSE, and for Space Station logistics, this combination might make large enough a market to support both vehicles. In addition, the current depressed commercial market may not last forever — there are insufficient commercial launch opportunites for comsats right now — and we may need both vehicles in the future. This is especially true if we start major opporations on the moon or nearby asteroids that would require regular cargo flights from a diverse set of vehicles.
— Donald
“The best solution going forward is to increase the market to the point where both [EELV] vehicles _can_ be supported.”
Is it really the government’s job to ensure that Lockheed Martin and Boeing have a large enough market for both their launch services? Or, to meet the requirements of ‘assured access’, does it make more sense to also award launch contracts to non EELV players such as Falcon IX.
That is not to disparage leveraging the EELV for Project Orion and Delta II missions. It is likely that EELVs would provide more affordable launches than the Ares family. That savings, not shaping the market to favor the military industrial complex, should be incentive enough for the government.
Having the federal government pick a favorite launch vehicle and then try to shape the market in its favor smacks of the failed Space Transportation System launch policy of the 1980s: “From the beginning of the Shuttle program until the Challenger disaster in 1986, it was the policy of the United States that NASA be the public-sector provider of U.S. launch capacity to the world market. Initially NASA subsidized satellite launches with the intention of eventually pricing Shuttle service for the commercial market at long-run marginal cost.” – Wikipedia: Private Spaceflight
John, I misspoke. Part of the reason I want the VSE to use the EELVs is to encourage a commercial space industry. If Elon or someone else can — successfully — duplicate the EELV capabilities, they certainly should be able to compete.
However, how is the government’s “picking” one of the EELVs any less “shaping the market”?
Ideally, the EELVs should compete with each other and any other American commercial vehicles for government work in their class, and also with foreign vehicles for commercial work, on as level a playing field as possible.
What should not happen is for the government to develop yet another medium class vehicle for its own use unless there are very good technical reasons for that. I haven’t seen sufficient justification for the “stick” to consider it a wise use of the nation’s limited launch funds.
— Donald
In terms of military/IC missions, a point worth making is that P&W and LM have yet to open up the domestic RD-180 line in West Palm Beach…a supply chain that relies on Russian (or any foreign) manufacturing plant for strategic systems is not secure, by any stretch of the imagination.
Looks like two of the most conservative COTS selections on offer, seeing as NASA chose the two that are farthest along in their development. Probably wise. . . .
— Donald
From SpaceRef:
NASA Selects Crew and Cargo Transportation to Orbit Partners http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=20628
NASA selected SpaceX, El Segundo, Calif. and Rocketplane-Kistler, Oklahoma City, to develop and demonstrate commercial orbital ransportation services that could open new markets and pave the way for contracts to launch and deliver crew and cargo to the International Space Station.
“Conservative” is a little generous, I think; probably “least extraordinarily risky” would be accurate, although that’s still saying a lot in terms of the respective track records of SpaceX and Kistler-Rocketplane.
I’d really be interested in seeing the TRL charts for each winner’s proposal…a lot of red there, I’d expect.
As far as getting competent people, SpaceX at least is located in metropolitan Los Angeles, in terms of a major aerospace labor pool; I’m not sure where Kistler can draw from – the industrial centers of Missouri, Texas, and Kansas are still a bit of a drive from OC.
$500 million in the taxpayers’ money for two companies that do not have a single sucessful LEO launch between them, IIRC, is a questionable bet, to be charitable.
Sam, Kistler’s operations used to be in Seattle. I don’t know where they plan to do their future work. I know that they have selected Orbital Sciences to manage the development, and that Lockheed Martin is a major subcontractor.
It looks to me like NASA chose the least risky companies, as opposed to the least risky technologies. Both vehicles, but particularly Kistler, involve major technical and operational changes in the way the launch industry has operated in the past — which is kind of the point. However, one company is backed by established aerospace concerns and the other is paid for without answering to the management of a boader company or, worse, shareholders.
The least risky technical approach was probably SpaceHab, with their apparent capsule on any medium-class launch vehicle proposal — which presumably involved them developing just a capsule not a whole launch vehicle. For better or worse, NASA did not choose that.
Think of it this way — for only a little more than the incremental cost of one Shuttle launch, or perhaps a quarter of one medium-class expendable launch, NASA gets a chance at dramatic improvements. You appear to think it’s a small chance; I remain hopeful. In either case, I think it’s a gamble worth taking. The alternative is to continue paying current prices into the indefinite future.
— Donald
Oops, I inverted by comparison. That should be, for only the cost of some four medium-class expendable launches. . . .
— Donald
Crew and Cargo Transportation to Orbit Partners
Isn’t the acronym for that C C TOP?
And if it is both crew and cargo, why didn’t they go with t/Space for the crew part?
The reason I support greater use of EELVs for the VSE is because we have idle factory capacity that already exists to provide these vehicles. The reason that -both- NASA and DoD should be buying them is because it makes them cheaper for everyone. As they get cheaper more demand will enter into the market. Commercial satellites have been launched on the Atlas V. Folks need to quit obsessing on the whole “why should government subsidize these vehicles” and move on to the question of “how can we get more customers for our fine American launch vehicles?”
Ken, I agree with every word of your last paragraph.
— Donald
Ken and Donald have it right. Many can’t understand why NASA would go through the trouble and expense of developing Ares I, which is of comparable capability to Delta and Atlas. Using these existing launch assets for the crew element of the VSE transportation equation makes more sense. Pursuing this option would free up resources for more immediate development of the Ares V.
Ares V takes care of the political considerations of keeping Shuttle contractors and infrastructure engaged. It also makes contemplation of ambitious missions more realistic. All the studies done over the last several decades have pointed to heavy-lift as the number one priority for any human missions beyond earth orbit.
“$500 million in the taxpayers’ money for two [COTS] companies that do not have a single sucessful LEO launch between them, IIRC, is a questionable bet, to be charitable.”
Sam:
“Charitable” is paying Lockheed Martin and Boeing $2.03 billion to build “affordable” EELV launch systems that are now estimated to cost the government $13.2 billion more over their lifetime than was initially promised.
“Questionable Bets” are not placed with the COTS milestone-based payment approach with which NASA engages SpaceX and Rocketplane-Kistler. If those teams don’t meet their milestones they aren’t going to see the disbursement.
I agree with John.
Boeing and Lockheed never would have accepted the same terms, for development of the Delta IV and Atlas V, that SpaceX and Kistler are accepting for development of their systems.
SpaceX and Kistler are each accepting $200Mish in cash, in objective-based milestone payments. That is a lot less cash, and a lot more risk, than Boeing and Lockheed ever accepted in their EELV programs. They all are putting up hundreds of millions in private capital.
At the same time, if either the K1 of Falcon IX works, the U.S. government will get MUCH more than a 20-30% improvement in launch costs.
The U.S. government is getting a much better deal in this case.
I would take this deal any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
I do agree the overall risk is higher of each investment, but the correct way to mitigate this risk is to adopt best practices from private industry and to diversify the overall risk by using a portfolio approach. This means investments in more companies, not less.
– Al
Now that NASA has picked the two winners, I think we can draw some preliminary conclusions about what NASA is doing.
I draw two preliminary conclusions from the existing data.
1) Major “Skin in the Game”
First, a data point. “Space News” reported (in their insider newsletter) that Rocketplane-Kistler probably has raised the private money it needs to complete the K1. If true, I estimate that this means a $300-400M commitment of funds by private investors. (Earlier reports were that Kistler needed $500-600M, less $200M from NASA in COTS, gives you my estimate.)
If true, both SpaceX and Rocketplane-Kistler had solid commitments of at least $100M in private capital.
It is possible that one or more of the others had similar hard commitments of large amounts of cash, but I am doubtful. This kind of money is not commonly available.
2) Huge breakthroughs for U.S. LAUNCH industry.
Both SpaceX’s Falcon IX and Rocketplane-Kistler’s K1 represent the possibility of a huge breakthrough for the U.S. LAUNCH industry.
SpaceHab and Andrews were reportedly bidding existing LVs. They may have bid the Falcon IX, but making this choice would not have increased the chance of a launch breakthrough.
tSpace was reportedly bidding an upgraded version of their Air launched Quickreach. “Space News” reported a NASA HQ rumor (earlier this week) that tSpace was technically lower risk than Kistler, but that Kistler was probably going to win because of the large investment commitment.
SpaceDev was reportedly bidding a hybrid rocket, but it is possible that SpaceDev was bidding a Falcon IX too and was only bidding hybrids for in-space transportation (NOTE: SpaceDev announced that it had signed some contract options). I don’t anybody who believed that a large Earth-to-orbit hybrid rocket made economic sense, and if they bid the Falcon IX, it had the same drawback mentioned above.
CONCLUSION:
The 2 following factors were the primary disciminators in NASA’s selection of the COTS winners.
1) The possibility of a very large breakthrough for the U.S. launch industry.
2) The amount of “skin in the game”, and the hardness of the commitment, by private investors.
– Al
Al, I hope you are correct, because both of those should have been the basis of a decision.
NASA’s choices here involve a couple of interesting ironies. Kistler’s original design used left over Russian rockets updated and marketed by Aerojet that were first used on the N-1 moon rocket (anyone know if this is still true?). The early unreliability of these rockets was part of the reason for the N-1’s failures and Soviet Unions’ loss of the moon race. If the direct desendents of these rockets indeed end up supporting commercial cargo flights to the Space Station, freeing up resources for NASA’s return to Earth’s moon, this represents irony in its purest form.
Likewise, SpaceX now has a second chance to try to kill Kistler — this time, hopefully, on the technological and economic battlefield, rather than in the court room.
— Donald
Don,
You are correct.
Kistler uses the NK-33s, which were originally developed for the N-1 moon rocket. After the first N1 failures, the Soviet Union kept working on improving the engines, until they were perfected. When the order came down from above to destroy all of the work, the company that built the NK-33s put them into storage and hid the engines. (Nit – during the COTS press conference Horowitz mistakenly called them the NK-43s, which is a different Russian engine, and not the NK-33 which is used by the Kistler K1.)
I finally saw the NASA press conference this weekend on NASA TV. Horowitz reported that they had 17 factors they considered. He stated that the SpaceX and Kistler solutions were high risk, and his statement included an implied acknowledgement that they were *higher* risk than some of the alternatives. Presumably on “technical risk”, as well as investment risk (Horowitz stated that if a company needs more investment, that this increases the risk. I was surprised to hear a NASA executive state this … as most NASA civil servants don’t appear to understand much about private financing).
Also, Horowitz was asked a direct question by a reporter about why NASA chose to buy brand new undemonstrated LVs on top of a brand new undemonstrated spacecraft, when some of the competitors had bid proven LVs, and were clearly lower total risk. Horowitz acknowledged this, and then pointed to the COTS announcement’s goal of much lower launch costs. In other words, bidding an existing LV (with its lower risk) appears to have been a disadvantage, and that NASA really wanted to buy the chance at a LV breakthrough.
After watching this, it is clear to me that NASA understands that SpaceX and Kistler are not the “lowest risk” solutions. I am even more convinced that the “skin in the game” and “big industrial payoff” discriminators were the deciding factors.
Botttom Line — NASA is throwing the bomb, and going for the big touch down … so to speak (if you use football terms).
This is going to be exciting.
– Al
Al, I consider American football a barbaric game that I know little about — despite having to sit through too many when I was in High School Marching Band. However, I pretty much agree with your analysis. It’s clear NASA went for relatively high technical risk — though both vehicles are already partially developed, which should reduce risk — and relatively low (but still high) corporate risk, as I discussed above.
— Donald
(Nit – during the COTS press conference Horowitz mistakenly called them the NK-43s, which is a different Russian engine, and not the NK-33 which is used by the Kistler K1.)
(Nit 2 – the Kistler K1 uses both NK-33s and NK-43s, three of the former on the first stage and one of the latter on the second. See Kistler’s page or Encyclopedia Astronautica. The NK-43 is just an NK-33 with a high-altitude nozzle for upper stage operation.)