By Emelie Rutherford
As the Obama administration moves to dismantle NASA’s Constellation program, lawmakers are prodding the Pentagon to craft plans for aiding the industrial base for solid and liquid rockets.
The fiscal year 2011 NASA budget initially proposed eliminating the space shuttle replacement program that has included the developmental Ares I launch vehicle and Orion crew capsule and the future Ares V heavy-lift rocket. Obama, though, called in April for salvaging some work done on Orion and pledged to begin building a new heavy-lift rocket by 2015.
The Constellation changes have exacerbated the House and Senate armed services committees’ concerns about the status of the solid rocket industrial base, and the Pentagon’s reliance on it.
A House Armed Services Committee (HASC) report accompanying the FY ’11 defense authorization bill that cleared the House last Friday chides the Pentagon for failing thus far to unveil a plan for sustaining the solid rocket motor industrial base, as required by the FY ’10 defense act.
“The committee remains concerned about the health and long-term viability of the solid rocket motor industrial base,” the HASC report states.
“The committee encourages the (Defense) Department to give full consideration to the committee’s preferences in the preparation of the solid rocket motor industrial base sustainment plan required by section 1078 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010,” it adds.
The report says action is needed to sustain deployed strategic and missile defense systems and to maintain “an intellectual and engineering capacity to support the next- generation rocket motors.” It notes that because of Constellation’s cancellation the cost of propulsion systems could increase from 40 to 100 percent, because the Pentagon may have to assume all infrastructure costs that it currently shares with NASA.
“After extensive briefings with the (Defense) Department and industry, the committee believes there is an opportunity to identify a more strategic, long-term, defense-wide approach to the development, acquisition, and production of solid rocket motors that would benefit the industrial base and could be leveraged for future strategic strike (both nuclear and non-nuclear), missile defense, and space launch systems,” the report says.
The HASC thus calls for the Pentagon to do three things: “invest in a substantive defense-wide research and development activity specifically focused on design, development, and technology maturation associated with a 40-inch diameter class rocket motor; align its long-term solid rocket motor production plans to maximize the use of existing production capabilities;” and work with NASA on the “government-wide” challenge of sustaining the long-term viability of the solid rocket motor industrial base.
In addition, the House-passed bill would increase the amount the administration requested for keeping the Minuteman III Solid Rocket Motor production line “warm,” raising the total from $44.2 million to $51.7 million. This $7.5 million boost would support low-rate production of six rocket motor sets in FY ’11. The administration’s proposal would fund only three sets, an arrangement the HASC report says would lead to program termination in FY ’12 and require regular recertification of technicians for each production run.
The SASC, meanwhile, also is prodding the Pentagon to craft that solid-rocket motor industrial base plan required by law.
The FY ’11 defense authorization legislation the Senate panel finished marking up last Thursday directs the defense secretary “to implement recommendations to sustain the solid rocket motor industrial base,” according to a summary.
The SASC-approved measure also calls for a plan to sustain the liquid rocket motor industrial base, which would be crafted by the defense secretary and NASA administrator.
Initial estimates showed canceling Constellation could double the price of the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) propulsion systems, both solid-propellant and liquid-propellant rocket engines, Air Force Space Command head Gen. Robert Kehler said in March (Defense Daily, March 15).
The EELV government-space-launch system is made up of Delta IV and Atlas V rockets developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT]-Boeing [BA] joint venture United Launch Alliance.
For Constellation, ATK [ATK] has been the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage, Boeing has developed the Ares I upper stage, and Lockheed Martin has been making Orion.