NASA

When’s the right time for COTS-D?

Last week the Space Frontier Foundation announ ced it had found a funding source for the human spaceflight option (“Capability D”) of COTS: the $2 billion in additional funding that both John McCain and Barack Obama have promised for NASA during the presidential campaign. “It’s time that our national leaders give American entrepreneurs a shot at closing this gap. Let’s take the two billion dollars in the candidates’ plans and fund up to five winners of COTS-D,” Foundation chairman Berin Szoka said in a press release.

But as I reported in an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, the two companies that currently have funded Space Act Agreements with NASA under COTS have very different viewpoints on when COTS-D funding should be turned on. Speaking on a panel at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in New Mexico October 22, SpaceX vice president Diane Murphy said SpaceX wanted to get started as soon as possible. The sooner NASA enables the $300-million option in its current agreement, she said, the sooner the company can get started on long-lead items like an escape tower for the Dragon spacecraft, which will take 18-24 months to develop.

A contrasting viewpoint came from Robert Richards, vice president of Orbital and manager of their COTS program. “I don’t think it would even be prudent for NASA to fund a Capability D without seeing tangible process on the cargo side,” he said. “The path that we’re on, as a company, is probably the most prudent for NASA, which is to really put resources into making sure this cargo system is operating reliably and repeatably, and then move on to Capability D.”

Murphy argued that there’s no risk to NASA, since the agency only pays under the terms of the COTS agreements when the companies actually achieve stated milestones. “There’s no downside here. So I don’t understand why anybody would really object to getting going with this because you have to prove you can do it before the government pays.” Richards, though, insisted that a focus on cargo-only for now provided “the most value for the buck”, and that a “robust” cargo system “will pay dividends down the road to a manned system, but it should be a step-by-step approach.”

Cynics will point out that this difference in viewpoints may be based on the technical aspects of the two companies’ systems: SpaceX designed Dragon from the beginning to support both cargo and crew, while Orbital’s Cygnus is initially designed only for cargo upmass, with studies on cargo recovery and crew options currently in only the early stages. But it might be easier to win support for additional COTS-D money of any kind if the two current funded companies were on the same page.

7 comments to When’s the right time for COTS-D?

  • red

    Both companies seem to be assuming that they’d win a COTS-D competition, but that’s not a sure thing.

    Orbital seems to be under-emphasizing the time-critical nature of the COTS-D issue. If we wait 4 or 5 years, we’ll miss the chance to fill the gap. Such a delay might also bring changes that would make COTS-D impossible (politics, budget, economy, etc). In the meantime, Ares will be the only option for ISS when it should be directed at the Moon. Finally, we could miss a window to push commercial crew services (eg: to Bigelow stations).

  • Sam Dinkin

    Interesting. I doubt SpaceX will join forces with Orbital to let them share the wealth of COTS-D, but it makes sense if they want to remove the most likely objection.

  • Al Fansome

    I can tell you this from having observed Orbital for nearly two decades — their corporate position can rapidly change (and sometimes does rapidly change) based on what they perceive their “self interest” to be.

    A few issues here explain the difference in position.

    1) The Taurus II is not that good at delivering people. Dr. Antonio Elias, a senior Orbital executive, has publicly posted statements at “NASAspaceflight.com” that Orbital has internally analyzied what it would take to send people to ISS on the Taurus II, and they think they can only transport 2 people per mission.

    This means their system will be much more expensive per person.

    For this reason, Orbital may think their chances of winning COTS-D are not that good.

    2) Orbital has a conflict of interest as Orbital has a big subcontracted piece of the Orion project (the Launch Escape System)
    http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/Publications/LAS_Fact.pdf

    While the Orion is unlikely to be cancelled in the next Administration, even if the next Administration funds COTS-D, Orbital may be worried. This cost-plus contract is easy money for Orbital.

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • Dave Huntsman

    SpaceEx and Orbital’s opinions represent the two extremes of COTS-D: Orbital’s “don’t get distracted from paying me money on cargo services”, vs. SpaceEx’s clean-sheet, new booster, new capsule design that they say should be funded ASAP.

    The most likely success is to be had from the middle ground: using an existing launcher (eg, Delta-IV or Atlas-V), mitigating new launch vehicle cost (and significant risk), while putting most of the development effort into a human-rated vehicle that already has some pedigree behind it. The most interesting of these is SpaceDev’s DreamChaser on an Atlas-V; since DreamChaser has significant Russian and U.S. heritage behind it, and SpaceDev has continued to refine it over the past two years.

    While Atlas V et al do not meet traditional government ‘man-rating’ criteria, that is not necessarily a show stopper to get something going. Accepting factors of safety of 1.25 vice 1.4 (for example) is something that might be accepted for early flights, with restrictions on launch day conditions, crew carried, etc. to add margin, particularly assuming an escape capability from a malfunctioning booster. There would be plenty of volunteers; not only NASA, but corporate as well. (I can remember one meeting in early shuttle flights when the then-head of the NASA Astronaut Office, John Young, demanded that a certain risk for one type of commercial payload not be accepted. When he wasn’t winning his argument, he threw down and said: “Then we won’t fly that thing”. To which our big boss, Chris Kraft, looked him in the eye and said: “If you don’t wanna fly it, we’ll find someone who will”.) And we flew it – many times.

    Orbital’s go-slow-and-methodical approach ignores the pressing interests of the United States. SpaceEx’s attitude is to be commended – but their’s is absolutely the highest-risk approach. And simply giving more money that might magically come NASA”s way to NASA for Constellation is also not the right thing to do; it won’t necessarily fix the problems, close any gaps, or reduce risks – but it may hurt any possibility for further private financing for commercial ventures if financiers see NASA, right or wrong, as a competitor trying to continue its corner on human transportation,

    Any such additional monies are therefore best used to fund several alternatives – including and especially the Middle, lower-risk, lower-cost path: an optimized mix of current vehicles and heritage hardware that also has the effect of further jump-starting a commercial space industry that will allow us to close the gap and stay in space, something NASA’s current plans do not do. It also has the greatest likelihood to meet the demand of not only ISS transportation, but private efforts like Bigelow’s, too. It would also demonstrate to the financial community that, like with COTS-cargo, NASA is absolutely committed to commercial answers to human taxi services; which, when combined with the existence of non-NASA drivers like Bigelow, stands the greatest chance of encouraging private capital to help finance the efforts.

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  • Robert Simko

    If COTS D is ever to be funded, it’s NOW. We have at least a 5 year gap in human transport. Pres. Elect Obama has promised an additional 2 billion for space. That could easily fund all the main players in developing manned capable rockets. Spacex, Atlas 5, Delta 4, and 2 others. Orbital doesn’t have to compete, if they don’t want. Now is not the time to fight about which choice is the best. That leads to denigrating the competition and then, no one will get funded. The important thing now is to get the funding approved ASAP.

    What happens, if Ares 1 gets cancelled for some reason. We need a back-up. By funding 4 or 5 companies, we will have true American competion for space flight. That’s the American way.

  • PHILLIP GEORGE

    I agree..I just wrote an openion on Nasaspaceflight today about it.
    This is what I would do:

    Take $1b and fund 4 players.

    This may end up being something like this:

    1. SpaceX with Dragon. –medium risk
    2. Atlas V with Dragon or lightweight version of Orion. –low risk
    3. Fund 2 new player –high risk

    At the end of the day, you might have 2+ protential commerical crewed suppliers to the ISS. This suppliers, could also offer their services to Bigalow or other countries who want to fly astronauts. The US has access to the ISS no matter what happens with the Constellation Program. Private industry is advanced. If one of the very high risk companies maybe T/Space gets operational, their cost may be less than SpaceX which again would allow for growth of the space industry. Again Bigalow has two or more suppliers to his complex. The more syuppliers he has, the more chance industry will see that they can get into space say x times/year. If I am a large company and I want to go to space, maybe I want to go next year? You cannot do this now. With 3 companies competing, you have alot better chance of getting a ride for your experiment.

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