Air Force Secretary Deborah James on Wednesday doubted the service would meet lawmakers’ 2019 deadline to develop a next-generation rocket engine.
“To have that 2019 deadline there is pretty aggressive and I’m not sure we can make it,” James testified to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee (SAC-D) during the Air Force’s fiscal year 2016 budget request hearing.
Section 1604 of the FY ’15 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directs the Defense Department to compete and produce a domestically-made next-generation engine by 2019. Lawmakers want the Air Force to eventually eliminate reliance on the Russian-made RD-180 engine, which the services and the intelligence community (IC) use in a majority of their space launches. The RD-180 and its use by DoD incumbent launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) has become a hot topic since Russia invaded Crimea in early 2014. ULA uses the RD-180 with its Atlas V launch vehicle.
James, in response to a question by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), warned that her technical experts told her that developing a next-generation engine is not a “one, two or three year thing,” but an effort that could take as many as nine years. James said it could take six to seven years to develop the engine plus as many as two years to integrate it into a launch vehicle.
Section 1608 of the FY ’15 NDAA also prohibits DoD from awarding or renewing contracts for space launch activities using Russian-designed or manufactured rocket engines, other than ones provided by the 2013 “block buy” of 36 launch cores to ULA. Another exception is a contract awarded prior to Feb. 1, 2014, that was either fully paid for by the contractor or covered by a legally binding commitment of the contractor.
Shelby said he was told that DoD’s legal counsel may extend interpretation of Section 1608 restrictions to include a 29-engine subcontract awarded, presumably by ULA, in November 2012. Shelby said he hoped this interpretation would not take place as he believed it would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and would ultimately harm national security space launches and competition. Shelby also argued that it would create a capability gap for launches.
James acknowledged that the Air Force went to its legal counsel as there were “several sections of law which may, or may not, have had the same intent,” but were not necessarily together in terms of instruction. Requests for comment to the Air Force and DoD were not returned by press time. Shelby’s office was unable to respond on the record by press time.
James also warned that F-35 unit prices would increase if sequestration budget caps were not lifted in FY ’16. James said the Air Force would buy 14 fewer conventional variant F-35As this fiscal year if sequestration remained intact. The Air Force requested $5.3 billion in its FY ’16 budget for F-35A procurement, enough for 44 jets.
“I can tell you with certainty (unit prices) would go up because we would have to buy fewer, and when you buy fewer, the cost goes up for everyone,” James said.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh testified Wednesday that the Air Force faces risk in meeting its F-35A full operational capability (FOC) goal of 2021 due to a maintainer issue, which Welsh called the Air Force’s “biggest hurdle.” F-35 Program Executive Office (PEO) Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan warned in November that a lack of skilled maintainers across the Air Force due to Congress blocking A-10 retirement could put the August 2016 initial operational capability (IOC) goal at risk, though he said he felt “pretty good” at the time (Defense Daily, Oct. 30).
ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA]. The F-35 is developed by Lockheed Martin with subcontractors Northrop Grumman [NOC] and BAE Systems.