By Emelie Rutherford
Faced with lawmakers concerned about how proposed NASA changes might harm the solid-rocket-motor industrial base, Pentagon officials said recently they hope easing export processes would help impacted companies.
U.S. Strategic Command head Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton said “analysis needs to be done” on what actions are needed to sustain the industrial base for solid-rocket motors, in order to help the Pentagon maintain strategic readiness.
These industry concerns are arising in the Pentagon and Congress because the White House is seeking in its fiscal year 2011 budget request to end NASA’s Constellation space exploration program, made up of crew capsules and rockets.
“Any decision made by the part of NASA on how they would proceed forward with their needs for solid-rocket motors, it certainly needs to be taken into the calculus at AT&L (the Pentagon’s acquisition, technology, and logistics office) as they look at the broader industrial base and our needs for solid-rocket motors for the strategic deterrent,” Chilton said.
While the four-star general stopped short of opining on what should be done to sustain the solid-rocket-motor industrial base, he told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee export reforms could help.
Chilton said he has advocated for reforms to U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) regimes starting last year because, “I had heard enough conversations in the space community that it seemed logical that we should take a close look at that.”
President Barack Obama’s administration launched an interagency review of the U.S. export-control system last August, an effort in which Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been deeply involved.
The administration unveiled some initial export reforms last week, intended to help double all U.S. exports over the next five years. Speaking at the Export-Import Bank Annual Conference on March 11, Obama announced the relaunch of the President’s Export Council, a national advisory committee on international trade, which will be led by Boeing [BA] CEO Jim McNerney.
Obama said Gates will “outline” the entire “reform proposal” in the coming weeks. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller reiterated yesterday to the House panel that Gates will give a talk on export-control reforms “within the next couple of weeks.”
Of interest to the space and defense industries, the export-control review has reevaluated technologies on the ITAR-dictated U.S. Munitions List and the process companies use to request licenses from the State Department to export items on the list.
“I’m happy to see that the (Defense) Department is starting to take a look at those (ITAR) regulations along with the State Department…to have a healthy debate and discussion on what’s the best thing forward to ensure we preserve our industrial base and to provide the capabilities we know we’ll need in the future,” Chilton said.
Miller said export-control reform is “important for the space-industrial base.”
“What we want to think about as we go forward with our national-security space strategy, we want to think about the appropriate role of the private sector in providing both the assets and the services in some space-mission areas,” he said. “And we’ll be looking hard at the appropriate balance there.”
NASA’s Constellation has included the developmental Ares I launch vehicle and Orion capsule and future Ares V heavy-lift rocket. ATK [ATK] has been the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage, Boeing has developed the Ares I upper stage, and Lockheed Martin [LMT] has been making Orion.
Initial estimates show 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 Mar. 15.
The EELV government-space-launch system is made up of Delta IV and Atlas V rockets developed by Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance.
Lawmakers including Strategic Forces Ranking Member Michael Turner (R-Ohio) voiced concerns yesterday about such rising EELV costs and ways Constellation’s cancellation would hit the industrial base and the nation’s strategic-deterrence and missile-defense programs.