By Emelie Rutherford
A blue-ribbon panel’s final report to President Obama on NASA’s future, which casts doubt on the viability of the Constellation program, will likely not be released quite as soon as planned.
The aerospace industry is waiting anxiously for the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee’s report to the White House, and congressional panels have lined up mid- September hearings to examine the options it lays out for the administration.
Yet the final version of the report, prepared by the panel led by retired Lockheed Martin [LMT] CEO Norm Augustine, will not be available by the beginning of September, as some observers had hoped.
“The committee is at work writing the final report and completing some parametric performance calculations needed so that we can more fully address our task,” it said yesterday in a statement provided by a spokesman. “Sections of the report will be provided to White House staff as they become available. The original plan was to have a printed report ready by mid-September; however, because of the length of the report it may require an additional two weeks before final release.”
The report lays out the same four overarching options that Augustine panel members decided on during a lengthy public hearing on Aug. 12 and then briefed to administration officials at the White House two days later, the statement says.
The four options–which are not outright recommendations–either fit it or exceed NASA’s dwindled spaceflight budget, which Augustine committee members said has been cut to such an extent that current Constellation program simply cannot be executed (Defense Daily, Aug. 14).
Constellation, a space-shuttle replacement effort intended to carry astronauts to the moon by 2020, for now includes the Ares I launch vehicle and Orion capsule, as well as the longer-term Ares V heavy-lift rocket and Altair lunar lander. ATK [ATK] is the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage, Boeing [BA] is developing the Ares I upper stage, and Lockheed Martin is developing Orion.
The Augustine committee’s options either target the moon or deep space as the next destination beyond low-Earth orbit.
The options that fit the current budget call for: keeping parts of the current Constellation program in place, while removing portions of it and delaying timelines, to make it fit the administration’s proposed NASA budget; or using an “Ares V Lite” government-launch system and a commercial setup for carrying crew to low-Earth orbit. The options that exceed NASA’s budget also entail: using a shuttle-derived government-launch system and carrying crew to low-Earth orbit by a commercial setup; or using a commercial setup to carry crew to low-Earth orbit and then employing for a launch system either an “Ares V Lite” booster, a shuttle-derived rocket, or a commercial rocket that could be a commercial version of the Pentagon’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV).
After the Aug. 12 public hearing Augustine noted to reporters that the panel’s final options don’t completely rule out Ares I.
“There’s one option that has Ares I in it and that’s a marker,” he said at the time. “And so there’s just as good a chance the decision-maker will choose that option as any other option….So I wouldn’t exclude anything at this point that’s in those options, and of course the president and the (NASA) administrator have the right to choose an option we didn’t even offer up. Or they may choose to take pieces of several of our options and combine them.”
Augustine said if the committee received new information spurring it to change the four options it would have to call another public hearing. A contingency hearing slotted for yesterday was deemed unnecessary and cancelled. Committee members consult as necessary electronically, spokesman Robert Mirelson said yesterday.
The Obama administration also is emphasizing the Augustine committee’s findings will not necessarily dictate NASA’s future.
“The Augustine committee hasn’t yet finalized its work or delivered the final report,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said yesterday in a statement. “Once we receive the report the Administration will move swiftly to review the thoughts put forth by the Committee, but at the end of the day, the President will make the decision, not a committee.”
Obama, he added, “has confirmed his commitment to human space exploration, an inspiring pursuit with far reaching benefits to the nation numerous times.”
In Congress, the NASA authorization committees have been waiting for the Augustine report to craft policy bills for the agency.
The House Science and Technology Committee is planning a Sept. 15 hearing on the Augustine panel’s report, though the date is contingent upon the report being complete.
The Senate Commerce Committee’s Science and Space Subcommittee is said to be eyeing a Sept. 16 hearing on the report as well.
Augustine and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden are expected to testify at both hearings.
Also in September, the Senate is likely to consider an $18.7 billion NASA appropriations bill, which matches the level of funding requested by the administration. The House- passed authorization legislation calls for cutting the amount to $18.2 billion.
Meanwhile, NASA is proceeding with plans to test Ares I, per the current Constellation program of record. An Ares I first stage five-segment solid-rocket booster is scheduled to undergo a horizontal ground test firing on Thursday at an ATK facility in Promontory, Utah. Then, on Oct. 31, NASA plans to launch Ares I-X on a test flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando.
NASA Ares I-X mission manager Bob Ess told reporters on Sunday that the October test flight is appropriate.
“We have a very high confidence level that the Ares I-X is germane to NASA. Period. No caveats,” Ess said, according to a report yesterday from Florida Today.
Ess reportedly added: “Now certainly in the background is the Augustine Commission and where NASA is headed, and I’ll admit to you that is a distraction. You can’t get away from it….But our team is totally focused on this rocket, totally committed.”
“The tests that are coming up really are a culmination of three or four years worth of design and manufacturing,” ATK spokesman George Torres said yesterday in an interview. “So what we’ll learn from these tests will help in the future on multiple kinds of launch vehicles.”
Torres noted that the Constellation program remains an option for the future, and that alternative arrangements could use Ares V and solid-rocket boosters in other ways than currently planned.