Further Delays Possible, Such As Any Funding Freeze Congress Sets For NASA Fiscal 2009 Appropriations
NASA Leaders Reject Report That Orion Safety Concerns Trumped By Budget, Cost Concerns
The unofficial target for the first manned flight of the Orion next-generation U.S. space capsule will be delayed one year from September 2013 to September 2014, NASA officials told journalists in a conference call late this afternoon.
They said tight money problems compelled the change.
However, the official publicly set target for the first manned Orion flight still remains March 2015, the officials said.
The announcement was made by Doug Cooke, deputy NASA associate administrator in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, and Jeff Hanley, Constellation program manager.
Separately, both of the officials took issue with a new report released earlier today that said some safety measures in the Constellation Program (the Orion space capsule and the Ares rocket that launches Orion from Earth) were being limited by cost considerations.
Safety provisions are having to buy their way onto the Orion-Ares spacecraft system, according to the report by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, in its 2007 annual report on NASA safety performance.
On the one hand, the report found that “NASA is making significant progress in improving safety issues during the past year,” according to ASAP Chairman Joseph W. Dyer. “The ASAP commends the Constellation Program for endorsing the recommendation of the ASAP and continuing to employ early hazard and risk analysis.”
But the panel did express concerns relating to the adequacy of funding for the Constellation Program.
Schedule pressures are introducing concurrency in both requirements development and program implementation decisions, and the ASAP panel highlighted the slow pace at which some NASA headquarters decisions are implemented across the ten NASA centers.
The ASAP based its advice on direct observation of NASA operations and decision-making. In the aftermath of the space shuttle Columbia accident, Congress required that the ASAP to submit an annual report to the NASA administrator and to Congress. The annual report analyzes NASA’s compliance with the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, as well as NASA’s management and culture related to safety.
Cooke and Hanley said they are unaware of whether any astronauts or others may be concerned that safety considerations aren’t being given more weight in development of the Orion-Ares system. “I can’t comment on who’s happy or unhappy,” Hanley said in response to a media question. “The [NASA and contractor] team has to work through those.”
“There are very few decisions that are unanimous” on all points, Cooke said. But managers are being very careful about safety issues, he said. And if someone has very strong concerns about a safety-related decision, there are appeal routes available, he added.
The beginning of Orion manned flights is a critical issue. As official schedules stand, the United States — the nation that placed men on the moon — for half a decade won’t even be able to transport one astronaut into low Earth orbit, much less to the moon, from the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2010 until the first manned Orion mission in 2015.
Some members of Congress are concerned that other nations may eclipse the United States in space, especially since U.S. rival China is pushing an aggressive space program replete with spacewalks and, in the next decade, a manned mission to the moon. India, Japan and Europe also have advanced space programs.
As well, many lawmakers wish to see the first Orion manned flight moved back to some earlier point, and the unofficial September 2013 target date was a response to those urgings. Also, some lawmakers wish to extend space shuttle flights beyond the mandatory October 2010 cutoff, a move that isn’t currently possible in proposed NASA budgets.
In announcing the delay in the unofficial target date for the first manned Orion flight from September 2013 to September 2014, Cooke said that even the new date represents an aggressive development schedule for the new spacecraft.
He announced the move before planned meetings with contractors on the multi-billion-dollar Orion-Ares program to brief them on the shift.
Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] is developing the Orion crew exploration vehicle, a space capsule. And various segments of the Ares rocket to lift Orion into space are being developed by The Boeing Co. [BA], Alliant Techsystems Inc. [ATK], and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies Corp. [UTX].
Other planned events, such as dates scheduled for test flights, also may be delayed.
While some estimates have indicated that the first Orion-Ares manned flight could be launched a month earlier for each additional $100 million supplied to the Constellation Program, with 2013 being the earliest possible date, it now is likely that 2014 would be the earliest, even if Congress provides ample extra funds.
Hanley said the 2014 date will save money as work progresses at a slower pace, and it also means the program is more likely to maintain its schedule. “We are slowing down the work,” he said.
There likely are adequate reserves in the program to deal with unknown unknowns, he said.
Even the September 2014 date may be optimistic.
It carries perhaps a 50 percent confidence level that it will be met.
Further, the numbers-crunching that NASA officials did in deciding on the one-year Orion manned mission delay didn’t take into account that Congress may not pass any NASA funding measure for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009. Instead, they may pass a continuing resolution, which would freeze NASA funding for part or all of 2009 at the old current 2008 levels.
A key to maintaining the Orion-Ares budget, Cooke and Hanley noted, is that there must be stable budgeting over the years for NASA.
Separately, they said crew-jarring oscillation problems in the Ares system likely have been resolved with a system to absorb shocks.