ATLANTA, October 25, 2011 – Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (Generation Orbit or GO) announced operation today as a new venture dedicated to the creation of a fast, flexible, and dedicated nanosatellite (1-30 kg) orbital payload delivery service. The service, called GO Launcher, will use existing high-speed jet aircraft and mostly existing rockets. Generation Orbit was officially announced today at the 2011 Commercial and Government Responsive Access to Space Technology Exchange (CRASTE) conference being held in Atlanta, GA.

GO is developing a new United States-designed and operated nanosatellite launch system called GO Launcher, an air-launch rocket architecture composed of an existing, reusable high-speed aircraft launch platform and expendable rocket stages. GO Launcher is designed to reduce the time it takes to get to space (under the mantra of "Your Orbit On Time") for the emerging field of nanosatellite customers.

"There are an estimated 250 nanosatellite projects globally today with market projections showing about 100 nanosatellites per year that will need launches in the latter part of this decade. The nanosatellite wave is real and is upon us. Yet these types of satellites currently have to launch as secondary payloads. GO is going to change that, giving these small satellites the freedom to launch when they want and to choose their orbit," stated Mr. A.C. Charania, CEO of Generation Orbit. "GO Launcher presents a near-term, low tech approach for a growing class of customer. GO is bringing together a focused and capable team of aerospace and aeronautical experts including aerospace launch vehicle designers, former military fighter pilots, aircraft operators, and rocket system developers. We look forward to utilizing the significant aerospace technical expertise within our firm and its partners to develop a responsive nanosatellite transport service for government, commercial, academic, and international customers."

Two service lines are planned: GO Launcher 1 (GO1) and GO Launcher 2 (GO2). GO1 is an initial demonstrator utilizing mostly existing solid rockets. GO1 could mature into an operational capability in the 1-10 kg class (LEO payload delivery capability, 250 km circular orbit). GO2 is a larger operational system than GO1 that offers a minimum payload delivery service in the 20-30 kg class (LEO payload delivery capability, 450 km circular orbit) with the potential for future growth. GO2 benefits from the experience gained from GO1 to reduce overall risk and prove the "Your Orbit Your Time" fast operations model. GO2 would also include options for inclusion of new technologies.

 

MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-173

 

SPACE STATION COMMERCIAL CARGO CARRIER ARRIVING AT NASA WALLOPS

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA's partnership with industry to develop

transportation to the International Space Station reaches another

milestone on Wednesday, Aug. 24. The cargo module for Orbital

Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus spacecraft, which will carry supplies to the

station, is scheduled to arrive at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in

Virginia.

 

Reporters are invited to cover the arrival of Cygnus' Pressurized

Cargo Module (PCM) at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday. NASA officials and

Orbital representatives will be available for interviews. To attend,

journalists must contact Keith Koehler at 757-824-1579 or e-mail

keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov by noon EDT on Aug. 23.

 

During the next several months, Orbital's engineering team will

integrate the PCM with the Cygnus service module that includes the

spacecraft's avionics, propulsion and power systems.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled for a demonstration flight early

next year on an Orbital Taurus II launch vehicle under NASA's

Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement with the

company. Cygnus will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional

Spaceport's pad 0A at Wallops. For information about the spacecraft,

visit:

 

 

http://www.orbital.com/CargoResupplyServices/

 

 

For information about NASA's commercial space transportation efforts,

visit:

 

 

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/index.html  

 

               

Behind the Scenes...WTKR-TV Norfolk May 23, 2011 Kurt Williams Reporting from "Behind the Scenes at NASSA Wallops Flight Facility" WTKR News, Norfolk

 

The Washington Post

Washington, D. C.

 

Space Shuttle: The Last Mission

Virginia aims to claim the next Space Coast

VIEW PHOTO GALLERY - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ready-for-takeoff/2011/07/08/gIQAPgH15H_gallery.html#photo=1 - 8 photos

By Annys Shin, Published: July 9

Wallops Island, Va. — They’re rushing to finish the new launch pad. The innkeepers and the ice cream parlors are figuring out how to capitalize on the crowds. And although there isn’t yet enough on display in the visitor’s center to occupy a child on a rainy day, Wallops Island is getting there, gearing up for its turn as the next Space Coast.

The marshy, ear-lobe-shaped land mass southwest of Chincoteague Island is home to NASA’s first rocket-launching site as well as the state-supported Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a scrappy, seven-person operation that is partly run out of an old gas station. With the retirement of the space shuttles, the spaceport is poised to become a major hub of commercial space flight and a tourist attraction to rival the Florida Space Coast at Cape Canaveral. If the fevered predictions of local leaders come true, the expansion of the aerospace industry around Wallops could inject tens of millions of tourist dollars into a regional economy that now relies on an annual wild pony auction and the area’s Mayberry flavor to bring in visitors.

“We really are sitting on a gold mine,” said Donna Bozza, director of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission.

Locals got a taste of Space Coast living on June 29, when Orbital Sciences, based in Dulles, sent a military satellite into orbit. The nighttime launch of a 70-foot-high Minotaur rocket had the air of a fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Cars clogged back roads, and a record 400 spectators filled the beach at the nearby Wallops Island National Wildlife Refuge.

The crowds may get bigger next year when Orbital begins making up for the loss of the shuttle with the first of eight supply runs to the International Space Station. The supply missions are part of a $1.9 billion contract with NASA.

Orbital chose to launch out of Wallops mainly because it is smaller and less bureaucratic, said company spokesman Barron Beneski. At Cape Canaveral, military launches have priority, which can lead to unpredictable delays for commercial space companies’ business.

“It gets expensive when you’re not able to go on time,” Beneski said. “In terms of priority at Wallops, we’ll be the priority.”

‘Original Space Coast’

The end of the shuttle program marks the start of a comeback of sorts for Wallops, which some locals have dubbed “the original Space Coast.” The first research rocket lifted off from the island on July 4, 1945 — more than a decade before the creation of NASA. Back then, the only way onto the island was by ferry.

Wallops also lays claim to putting the first female astronaut into orbit — a rhesus monkey named Miss Sam. As NASA began sending humans into space, Wallops was eclipsed by the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral. In the 1980s, Wallops Flight Facility, by then under the management of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, became a popular target for budget cuts, and its workforce shrank from 2,400 to 700. Compare that with the 32,000 employed at the Kennedy Space Center at the peak of the shuttle program in 1991.

Thus began the dark days of Wallops, during which it reinvented itself as a launch site for smaller, lower-cost payloads for academic and government projects.

Then, in the early 1990s, a federal initiative allowed commercial space launches at NASA facilities. That gave Billie Reed, an engineering management professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, the idea of building a spaceport at Wallops.

He went on to found the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority and obtained licenses to launch commercial spacecraft into orbit. He also raised enough federal grant money to build a launch pad, which cost about $3.6 million.

But a predicted boom in telecom satellite launches didn’t develop, and eight years passed before a rocket was launched from Pad 0-B. In 2006, the Air Force hired the spaceport to send up two satellites. Then, in 2008, Wallops secured its future in the post-shuttle era when NASA awarded Orbital one of two space station resupply contracts.

The supplies will be delivered by a Taurus II liquid-fuel rocket. The rocket’s parts are made in Ukraine and the United States and assembled at Wallops. A test launch is scheduled for the fall.

Last week, workers were busy assembling the test rocket in a giant white hangar that opened in March. Inside, workers and visitors must wear special blue coats that control the buildup of static electricity, lest they accidentally ignite tons of rocket fuel.

Once the rocket is complete, it will slowly make the one-mile journey to a new launch pad, which is expected to be finished by the end of August. It is being built with special tanks and piping to accommodate liquid-fuel rockets such as the Taurus. (The other launch pad at Wallops is designed for solid-fuel rockets.) The commonwealth provided $26 million in bond financing to build the launch pad, of which Orbital has pledged to repay about $19 million.

Into economic orbit?

Leslie Kovacs, Orbital’s senior manager for off-site operations, is in charge of the assembly of the 131-foot-high Taurus. Tan, with a receding hairline and direct manner, he can be hard to keep up with as he walks briskly around the hangar, batting away errant mosquitoes and explaining how the rocket parts will be “mated” together.

Kovacs is part of a small army of 200 or so Orbital employees and contractors who have descended upon Wallops and the surrounding communities to work on the Taurus II and another NASA contract to launch research rockets. Even amid the usual summer influx of tourists, the newcomers’ presence has been noticed by proprietors of local businesses as varied as motels and doughnut shops. (A study published in February by researchers at Salisbury University in Maryland estimated the spaceport already has an annual economic impact on the Lower Eastern Shore of $188 million.)

On a recent Tuesday, many of the tables inside Wolff’s Sandwich Shoppe, a deli close to the Wallops Flight Facility, were occupied mostly by men wearing the unofficial uniform of rocket scientists and engineers: pressed, short-sleeved shirts and lanyards.

“People who think the rocket business has no impact on Accomack County should come in here at lunchtime,” said the deli’s owner, Ron Wolff, who is a county supervisor.

For owners of mom-and-pop stores, the Taurus II launches have the potential to bring in some much-needed business during the off-season.

Some development-weary residents are cautious, however.

“We’re wondering what the future will bring — good and bad,” said Donna Mason, who owns the Waterside Motor Inn on Chincoteague Island. “You wonder about development and the impact, but most people are seeing it in a positive light so far.”

Bozza, of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission, said she was puzzled after the Minotaur launch when a man on the bus on which she was riding began taking pictures out of the window. The rocket had gone off just after 11 p.m.; now it was midnight. When she asked him what he could possibly be taking pictures of in the dark, he said the traffic.

“Normally at midnight, you could lay in the middle of the street” and not get run over, Bozza said with a laugh.

 

 

http://youtu.be/qLpLa32fA9w

 

Weak Market and Rival Ventures Cloud Prospects for Costly New Mexico Facility 

By Stephanie Simon and Andy Pasztor
1 September 2011
The Wall Street Journal
J
The Wall Street Journal - Print and Online CTGDJC
A3
English
(Copyright (c) 2011, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. -- New Mexico's 

Morgan Dean and photo journalist Chris Verri from Channel 8, WRIC-TV in Richmond Virginia came for a tour and briefing of WFF/MARS/Taurus II on May 2, 2011. Their story was featured on Channel 8, May 11, 2011. Here is the link:

 

April 18, 2011

 

RELEASE : 11-102

 

 

NASA Awards Next Set Of Commercial Crew Development Agreements

 

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded four Space Act Agreements in the second round of the agency's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev2) effort. Each company will receive between $22 million and $92.3 million to advance commercial crew space transportation system concepts and mature the design and development of elements of their systems, such as launch vehicles and spacecraft.

 

The selectees for CCDev2 awards are:

-- Blue Origin, Kent, Wash., $22 million

-- Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $80 million

-- Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $75 million

-- The Boeing Company, Houston, $92.3 million

 

"We're committed to safely transporting U.S. astronauts on American-made spacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreign governments," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "These agreements are significant milestones in NASA's plans to take advantage of American ingenuity to get to low-Earth orbit, so we can concentrate our resources on deep space exploration."

 

The goal of CCDev2 is to accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities and reduce the gap in American human spaceflight capability. Through this activity, NASA also may be able to spur economic growth as potential new space markets are created.

 

Once developed, crew transportation capabilities could become available to commercial and government customers.

 

"The next American-flagged vehicle to carry our astronauts into space is going to be a U.S. commercial provider," said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager. "The partnerships NASA is forming with industry will support the development of multiple American systems capable of providing future access to low-Earth orbit."

 

These awards are a continuation of NASA's CCDev initiatives, which began in 2009 to stimulate efforts within U.S. industry to develop and demonstrate human spaceflight capabilities. For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:

 

 

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration  

 

 

Copies of the Space Act Agreements are available at:

 

http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/index.htm

 

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/index.htm

 

Space Act Agreements

The agreements posted today are an interim proactive public release based on submitter consent immediately available. A process has been initiated to receive and consider detailed submitter positions as contemplated by 14 CFR 1206.610 before posting a final version on the KSC FOIA webpage.

• NNK11MS01S Space Act Agreement - Sierra Nevada Company 04/18/2011 - http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/documents/NNK11MS01S_SAA-%20SNC_Redacted.pdf
• NNK11MS02S Space Act Agreement - Blue Origin 04/18/2011 - http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/documents/NNK11MS02S_SAA_BlueOrigin_04-18-2011.pdf
• NNK11MS03S Space Act Agreement - The Boeing Company 04/18/2011 - http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/documents/NNK11MS03S_Boeing_SAA_Combined_Redacted.pdf
• NNK11MS04S Space Act Agreement - Space Exploration Technologies Corp. 04/18/2011 - http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/documents/NNK11MS04S_SAA-SpaceX.pdf

 

Government officials, including U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, joined leaders of the commercial space industry to celebrate the completion of the gargantuan Wallops Island facility, where Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Taurus II rocket will be assembled beginning this month. Orbital will conduct missions for NASA from Wallops under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services project and a Commercial Resupply Services contract for missions to take cargo to the International Space Station. NASA has set a target launch date of Dec. 14 for the first COTS demonstration mission, according to Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski. Bolden called the Horizontal Integration Facility's opening "a critical milestone in the creation of a robust commercial space industry." The new building, at 250 feet long, 150 feet wide and 60 feet high, dominates the Wallops Island skyline. It was built in 16 months and has space to assemble two Taurus II rockets simultaneously. "With this state-of-the art building, NASA demonstrates its commitment to the success of the nation's commercial launch industry," Bolden said Tuesday. Bolden, Mikulski, Orbital Sciences Chief Executive Officer Dave Thompson, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier, Goddard Space Flight Center Director Rob Strain and NASA Wallops Flight Facility Director Bill Wrobel gave speeches at a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the facility's opening -- with the Taurus' first stage, which was manufactured in Ukraine and delivered to the new building earlier this month, as a backdrop. Bolden recognized high school student Maggie Thompson in the crowd gathered in the facility, saying it is important that someone from the next generation witness Tuesday's events because Americans of her age are the ones who will truly participate in "the golden age of commercial spaceflight." Bolden also praised Wallops Flight Facility employees, saying, "You may be small but you have a great impact." Bolden said hundreds of people worked on the HIF project, including 60 jobs that were created or saved locally. The project also employed the services of mainly Virginia and Maryland subcontractors, including five located within 60 miles of Wallops, he said. Bolden introduced Mikulski, who chairs the Senate subcommittee which funds NASA, as "one of NASA's most vocal supporters." Mikulski predicted the spaceport at Wallops, although the nation's smallest, is going to be the forerunner of the 21st century American space program. "Wallops really packs a wallop," she said. Mikulski praised former U.S. Sen. John Warner of Virginia for partnering with her in support of Wallops and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. "We wanted to make sure we were getting the Eastern Shore ready for the jobs of the future," she said, adding that Virginia's two current senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb, also have been full partners in their support for Wallops.

Mikulski called the partnership between the government and the private sector represented by the Taurus project an example of "the genius of our American system" and said using commercial space companies will make possible "affordable and reliable" transportation into space.

"We don't need a Cadillac, we don't need a Ferrari -- we need a Taurus. This Taurus II launch from Wallops will do the job it needs to do," she said, predicting that Wallops will also be the launchsite for more intelligence satellites crucial to the nation's security in the future.

Local jobs also are an important part of recent developments at Wallops, Mikulski said, putting the number of jobs created at 400 and the value at $250 million.

 

Orbital Sees First Taurus II Flight In Sept.

Mar 29, 2011

By Frank Morring, Jr.

WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, Va. — Orbital Sciences Corp. is on track — with “a limited amount of slack” — to fly its new Taurus II launch vehicle in September on a risk-reduction mission. The first flight main stage is on a ship en route from the KB Yuzhnoye factory in Ukraine to the new Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) here, where it will be mated with its ATK Castor 30A upper stage and Cygnus cargo capsule. “The risk-reduction flight will be September, five-and-a-half or six months from now, depending on how things go,” said David W. Thompson, chairman and CEO of the Dulles, Va.-based space-hardware company, during the HIF dedication ceremony March 22. “And that will be followed about three months later by the COTS [Commercial Orbital Transportation System] demonstration mission in mid-December.” The Cygnus pressurized cargo module that will carry supplies on the Taurus II to the International Space Station (ISS) is essentially complete at the Thales Alenia Space factory in Turin, Italy, and the Cygnus service module is taking shape at Orbital’s satellite fabrication facility in Dulles. “There are plenty of things to work on; no major areas of concern now,” Thompson says of the Cygnus. “Several areas still require a lot of work, but the schedule on that looks pretty good right now. We have a limited amount of slack against all of those dates.” About 50 Ukrainian technicians are working full-time in the HIF to prepare the first production unit of the Taurus II main stage for pathfinder operations at the new launch pad, including a hold-down test of the full vehicle this summer. The Taurus II pad itself — one of two new pads for orbital missions operated here by the state of Virginia’s Commercial Space Flight Authority as the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) — is essentially complete. The concrete pad, flame trench and vehicle-delivery ramp have been finished, the propellant and inert gas tankage is in place, and the lightning towers and a 296-ft., 300,000-gal. water tower have been erected. Workers are installing the sound-suppression system that will use that water, the plumbing for fueling the rocket after it has been erected on the pad, and the electrical gear needed to control a launch. Ground-facility managers from Orbital and MARS are getting help in building the new pad from NASA experts normally based at Kennedy and Stennis space centers, Langley Research Center, and Marshall and Goddard space flight centers, as well as the NASA range experts here who are making the transition from sounding rocket launches to orbital missions. “Since this is one of the first brand-new launch pads to be developed in quite a number of years, we wanted to be sure that we were benefitting from the experience that existed in NASA with respect to the whole ground-processing and pre-launch flow and the necessary equipment at the pad,” Thompson says. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says Kennedy Space Center specialists are helping to develop the vehicle-fueling system, while Langley experts are working on the high-pressure pad systems. Stennis and Marshall will help with the hold-down test, which will see the rocket’s two Aerojet AJ-26 liquid oxygen/kerosene engines firing for about 30 sec. “It’s a first time for them, so we’re sending in people who’ve done this time and time again,” Bolden says. “I think we’re going to be okay.” Image: Orbital Sciences

 

SpaceX Announces Launch Date for the World's Most Powerful Rocket

Falcon Heavy will lift more than twice as much as any other launch vehicle

WASHINGTON – Today, Elon Musk, CEO and chief rocket designer of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) unveiled the dramatic final specifications and launch date for the Falcon Heavy, the world’s largest rocket.

“Falcon Heavy will carry more payload to orbit or escape velocity than any vehicle in history, apart from the Saturn V moon rocket, which was decommissioned after the Apollo program. This opens a new world of capability for both government and commercial space missions,” Musk told a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

"Falcon Heavy will arrive at our Vandenberg, California, launch complex by the end of next year, with liftoff to follow soon thereafter.  First launch from our Cape Canaveral launch complex is planned for late 2013 or 2014.”

Musk added that with the ability to carry satellites or interplanetary spacecraft weighing over 53 metric tons or 117,000 pounds to orbit, Falcon Heavy will have more than twice the performance of the Space Shuttle or Delta IV Heavy, the next most powerful vehicle, which is  operated by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.

Just for perspective, 53 metric tons is more than the maximum take-off weight of a fully-loaded Boeing 737-200 with 136 passengers. In other words, Falcon Heavy can deliver the equivalent of an entire airline flight full of passengers, crew, luggage and fuel all the way to orbit.

View the launch simulation video at www.spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=59 or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTwRxtmQ9IY 

Falcon Heavy’s first stage will be made up of three nine-engine cores, which are used as the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.  It will be powered by SpaceX’s upgraded Merlin engines currently being tested at the SpaceX rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas.  Falcon Heavy will generate 3.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.  This is the equivalent to the thrust of fifteen Boeing 747s taking off at the same time.

Above all, Falcon Heavy has been designed for extreme reliability.  Unique safety features of the Falcon 9 are preserved, such as the ability to complete its mission even if multiple engines fail. Like a commercial airliner, each engine is surrounded by a protective shell that contains a worst case situation like fire or a chamber rupture, preventing it from affecting other engines or the vehicle itself. 

Anticipating potential astronaut transport needs, Falcon Heavy is also designed to meet NASA human rating standards, unlike other satellite launch vehicles.  For example, this means designing to higher structural safety margins of 40% above flight loads, rather than the 25% level of other rockets, and triple redundant avionics.

Falcon Heavy will be the first rocket in history to do propellant cross-feed from the side boosters to the center core, thus leaving the center core with most of its propellant after the side boosters separate. The net effect is that Falcon Heavy achieves performance comparable to a three stage rocket, even though only the upper stage is airlit, further improving both payload performance and reliability.  Crossfeed is not required for missions below 100,000 lbs, and can be turned off if desired.

Despite being designed to higher structural margins than other rockets, the side booster stages will have a mass ratio (full of propellant vs empty) above 30, better than any vehicle of any kind in history.

Falcon Heavy, with more than twice the payload, but less than one third the cost of a Delta IV Heavy, will provide much needed relief to government and commercial budgets. In fact, Falcon Heavy at approximately $1,000 per pound to orbit, sets a new world record in affordable spaceflight.

This year, even as the Department of Defense budget was cut, the EELV launch program, which includes the Delta IV, still saw a thirty percent increase.

The 2012 budget for four Air Force launches is $1.74B, which is an average of $435M per launch. Falcon 9 is offered on the commercial market for $50-60M and Falcon Heavy is offered for $80-$125M. Unlike our competitors, this price includes all non-recurring development costs and on-orbit delivery of an agreed upon mission. For government missions, NASA has added mission assurance and additional services to the Falcon 9 for less than $20M.

Vehicle Overview

Mass to Orbit (200 km, 28.5 deg):      53 metric tons (117,000 lbs)
Length:                                            69.2 meters (227 ft)
Max Stage Width:                             5.2 m (17 ft)
Total Width:                                     11.6 meters (38 ft)
Weight at Liftoff:                               1,400 metric tons or 3.1 million lbs
Thrust on Liftoff:                                1,700 metric tons or 3.8 million lbs

Please note that Falcon Heavy should not be confused with the super heavy lift rocket program being debated by the US Congress.  That vehicle is intended to carry approximately 150 tons to orbit.  SpaceX agrees with the need to develop a vehicle of that class as the best way to conduct a large number of human missions to Mars. 

Falcon Heavy, the world's most powerful rocket

- WMDT-TV (Salisbury)

 http://www.wmdt.com/global/category.asp?c=201130&clipId=5683305&topVideoCatNo=201129&autoStart=true 

Congratulations SpaceX on COTS 1 Demo Flight

Link to Media Kit 

Powerpoint Presentation- Click 'All News' to view.

Satellite Technology Goodrich Hits Air Force ORS-1 Recon Satellite Milestone- 

 Maryland The Business of Space Science May 23, 2011

By Frank Morring, Jr.

Aviation Week, November 16, 2010

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, vowing to fight for an early flight of Orbital Science Corp.’s Taurus II launch vehicle, says he can foresee the day when human spaceflight is controlled from the company’s office-building campus near Washington Dulles International Airport.

In a brief question-and-answer session with reporters Nov. 12 following a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Orbital’s new “Mission Control Center-Dulles,” Bolden said he will do everything he can to produce some $300 million in augmented funding for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) this year.

With its share of the money, Orbital will be able to launch a Taurus II on a “risk reduction test flight” as early as the third quarter of next year, according to David W. Thompson, the company’s chairman and chief executive. If the flight goes well, Orbital’s COTS demonstration mission later in the year will be able to carry roughly 1,000 lb. more cargo to the International Space Station in its first Cygnus vehicle.

‘Buy Down Risk’

With NASA relying on Orbital and fellow COTS partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to offset the loss in ISS resupply capability with the upcoming shuttle retirement, 1,000 more pounds to orbit will help NASA and its international partners keep the station crew at six for a full program of scientific research. Bolden said the extra flight will “buy down risk” in the overall commercial cargo effort, while Thompson said the successful Taurus II test flight will lower the fuel margin required for its first mission with a Cygnus vehicle on top, enabling the extra cargo load.

“It continues to look promising that Congress will support the administration’s request to fund that work,” Thompson said. “We’re starting to ramp up our expenditures on it, and so far we’ve got adequate funding from the agency to support that.”

But without augmented funds, he said, the extra flight cannot take place. Under the current schedule it would lift off from Orbital’s new launch facility at Wallops Island, Va., in July or August 2011, he said, with the first COTS demonstration to the station in November or December of next year.

The first Cygnus cargo module is scheduled to reach Orbital’s manufacturing facilities in Dulles, Va., from Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, in the first quarter of next year. On the philosophy that it is better to use experienced subcontractors, Orbital already is fitting out the vendor-supplied service module structure that will be attached aft of the Italian module to provide power and propulsion. The company is also using Ukraine’s PA Yuzhmash to provide tankage for the liquid fueled Taurus II first stage, and has just run its first test of the Aerojet AJ26-62 engine that will power the stage. Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center are preparing for a 50-sec. hot-fire test of the engine in about two weeks following the 10-sec. start-and-stop test Nov. 10. Bolden cited the engine test, and Orbital’s prime-contractor role in the successful test of the sophisticated launch abort system for the agency’s Orion crew vehicle as evidence the company is bending metal in support of NASA programs.

“This is the way that we’re going to operate, and you’re going to see that we’re going to be operating, with humans, from this control center in conjunction with the Johnson Space Center,” Bolden said. “They’re not going to have to pack up and move to Houston. They’re going to operate out of here.”

(Franktown, Va.) --- The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority and Holly Grove Vineyards are pleased to announce  ‘Genesis’,  a new Virginia wine, with a very unique wine  label celebrating the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) and Virginia’s return to space. (See Label Attached)  Billie Reed, the Space Authority’s Executive Director will give ‘Genesis’ to his NASA hosts when he attends the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery in Florida, scheduled for November 1, 2010.
 
Jonathan Bess, the owner and vintner at Holly Grove Vineyards on Virginia’s Eastern Shore discussed this idea with Spaceport officials while attending a presentation by Bigelow Aerospace, another company investigating launching its rockets from MARS.
 
 “I know Wallops is where our nation’s space program was started” Bess said. “NASA Wallops and NASA Langley tested rockets and trained astronauts before Kennedy or Johnson Space Centers were created. I’m really excited about the Taurus II launches. This is going to have a positive impact here on the Shore and on our nation. I wanted to be a part of making history so I suggested a special wine label in celebration of America’s first space coast’s return to space!” 

Jonathan is donating 10% of the proceeds from ‘Genesis’ to the scholarship fund at the Virginia Space Flight Academy, and is offering a challenge to other Virginia winemakers to develop a label celebrating Virginia’s return to space and to donate to the fund as well.  State Senator Ralph S. Northam (D – VA 6) praised the partnership, saying that “STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) is needed to understand and succeed in medicine, technology, agriculture, aerospace, human services delivery and yes, winemaking.  I am very enthusiastic about Jonathan’s initiative.”
 
Delegate Lewis (D – VA 100) also supports the initiative, saying: “The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, its growth and success is a priority of mine, as it is generating hundreds of new, high quality jobs, bringing economic growth to our Eastern Shore, and will play a role in the new space tourism industry. MARS is one of four spaceports holding an FAA license to send rockets into orbit. The FAA has said that Virginia is the “most progressive state in the nation” when it comes to incentivizing the commercial space industry.”

Bob Marshall the former Executive Director and now a Member of the Space Flight Academy Board of Directors said "we are very grateful to Holly Grove Vineyards. We want to thank Jonathan and his family for their support for the Space Flight Academy. This is a unique and fun way to support our scholarship fund. We do hope other vineyards will join in and help. The MARS staff has been intimately involved with the Academy since it began. We are partners in educating young people about the excitement of space exploration and aerospace."

 

For Information about the Space Academy go to www.vaspaceflightacademy.org 
For information about the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport click here. 
Contact Laurie Naismith at mailto:laurien@vaspace.org  
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WASHINGTON — With the Pentagon’s stated goal of trimming its annual spending by $100 billion within five years, the 2012 budget guidance U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sent the military services this summer likely contains a number of weapons programs and offices headed for extinction.

But Gates apparently is one of the many who have been convinced the military must have the capability to rapidly augment and reconstitute its space systems, which is the raison d’être for the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office. The 2012 budget guidance is classified, but it contains very strong and specific language in support of the ORS mission, director Peter Wegner said in an Aug. 24 interview.

Over the last 20 years, space systems have become an integral part of tactical warfighting. The U.S. Air Force, for its part, continues to build a small number of large and expensive satellites for its operational constellations. Sensing that a new approach to military space was needed, Congress directed the Pentagon to stand up the ORS Office in its 2007 National Defense Authorization Act.

The ORS Office exists solely to deliver capabilities to the combatant commands and takes direction from Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command.

All of the work done by the ORS Office falls under one of three levels, or tiers, of capability. Tier one capabilities are those that can be created out of existing resources and be implemented in minutes to hours. Tier two capabilities are those that are ready and waiting to be called up, integrated and launched in days to weeks. Tier three capabilities are those that can be rapidly developed and transitioned to operations in months, as opposed to traditional satellite development timelines that are measured in years.

In its first three years of existence, the ORS Office has undertaken activities in all three of its mission tiers. Chilton has tasked the office to meet urgent warfighter needs on four occasions. Most recently he asked the office to develop options for an infrared missile warning augmentation capability. Chilton was briefed this month on the results of the study and directed the office to develop potential acquisition strategies in the coming weeks, Wegner said.

The ORS Office also has worked with other Pentagon organizations on a number of experimental satellites. The TacSat series of spacecraft are intended to be developed rapidly and cheaply to demonstrate the military utility of various emerging technologies. TacSat-1, which was never launched, featured a ship-tracking payload and a low-resolution imaging payload. TacSat-2, launched in 2006 on a Minotaur rocket, featured a medium-resolution imaging payload that was tasked directly by warfighters on the ground.

TacSat-3 launched in 2009 — also on a Minotaur — and has completed a yearlong demonstration of its hyperspectral imaging capability, which breaks light into hundreds of spectral bands to allow specific materials to be identified from space. The new capability proved to be so valuable that TacSat-3 was transitioned to operations in recent months.

There were many lessons learned from the TacSat-3 development, but most important was that a satellite of its size and cost — 400 kilograms and $90 million — really does have military utility, Wegner said. Now the biggest challenge is getting users to understand how to use hyperspectral products efficiently and effectively, because they are very unlike traditional imagery products, he said.

TacSat-4 has an ultra-high frequency communications payload and will be placed into a highly elliptical orbit. The satellite is awaiting launch sometime next spring, Wegner said.

The ORS Office currently has two major endeavors it is trying to get off the ground. The most pressing is the ORS-1 satellite, which was requested by U.S. Central Command to meet an urgent need for space-based infrared and optical imagery. It is the ORS Office’s first operational satellite development and is on an aggressive two-year development schedule.

ORS-1 prime contractor Goodrich ISR Systems of Danbury, Conn., is in the process of mating the spacecraft bus with its primary payload, and the satellite is on track to launch by the end of the year, Wegner said.

ORS-1 is viewed by many as an important test of how well the new approach to building spacecraft can work. Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command, in April indicated the success of this program will likely factor into how aggressively the Pentagon pursues the ORS construct in the years ahead.

The other major undertaking for the ORS Office is standing up the Rapid Response Space Works, or Chileworks, facility at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The shop will be the functional arm for the office’s tier two developments, where various satellite components can be warehoused for call-up and assembly at a moment’s notice.

Millennium Engineering of Chantilly, Va., in July was selected to manage Chileworks, and the company is expected to staff it with about a dozen scientists and engineers at a cost of $5 million to $7 million annually, said Air Force Maj. Rusty Powell, deputy chief of the ORS Office’s tier two division.

Chileworks’ first development project will be to build and launch a small synthetic aperture radar satellite by 2012. The project is something of a dry run for Chileworks to work out all of the kinks that are expected to pop up in establishing a satellite development shop. The ORS Office is currently in source selection for the satellite’s platform and radar payload and will have contracts in place by the end of September, Wegner said.

With a limited budget, Chileworks will not be able to produce every type of space capability that the United States could possibly need. Chilton is responsible for setting the facility’s priorities, and he will likely issue directions in the near future.

“We had a meeting just last week and General Chilton was very clearly describing his priorities,” Wegner said. “It was clear to me he’s been thinking about this a lot.”

 

ORS Office at a Glance

Mission: To develop, launch, activate and employ militarily useful space capabilities to reconstitute or augment existing space systems, and to create innovative solutions to urgent warfighter needs at the instruction of U.S. Strategic Command.

Headquarters: Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. 

Top Official: Peter Wegner

2010 Budget: $134.3 million 

Personnel: 60 military and civilian government personne

When the Taurus II rocket soars into space next year from a launch pad at NASA’s Wallops Island just a few hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean, it’s going to be a show unlike any that Virginia’s Eastern Shore has ever seen.

At 131 feet and 320 tons, the Taurus II is bigger by far than any of the thousands of smaller unmanned rockets launched from Wallops since its creation in 1945.  Construction began last year on a new concrete launch pad that’s connected to what looks like a highway on-ramp. It will be used to roll the rocket into place. A few hundred yards away is a new building for assembling the rocket pieces now being built and tested at other sites. The entire rocket will be put together while lying on its side and then raised upright on the pad.

Then, if all goes as planned, it will lift off in a dramatic trail of fire as it soars toward the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth about 200 miles above the planet’s surface. The rocket will bring as much as 7,000 kilograms (15,400 pounds) of supplies, such as food and oxygen and equipment for maintenance or new experiments.

The announcement in 2008 that Dulles-based Orbital Sciences had chosen Wallops and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) — a project shared by Virginia and Maryland — for the Taurus project was welcome news.  It came with the promise that Orbital would create 125 high-paying jobs, with another 230 or so indirect jobs expected as well.

Over the next five years, the company will make eight launches of the Taurus II from Wallops, as part of a $1.9 billion contract Orbital has with NASA to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

The Orbital deal is nice, and there are even bigger prizes out there. The decades-long effort to let the private sector handle much of what NASA has traditionally done is gaining momentum. The Obama administration gave the idea a big push this year in its NASA budget proposal, which calls for outsourcing to private companies the delivery of supplies — and maybe some day crew members — to the space station.

That’s opening up the potential for huge economic gains for states ready to seize the chance, and Virginia is hoping the Taurus project is a sign of things to come. Florida and California are probably its toughest competition. Florida’s Cape Canaveral tried hard to win the Taurus launch deal, hoping to recoup some job losses as NASA winds down the Space Shuttle program.

Another company looking at Wallops is Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace. It’s designing the first privately owned space station that it hopes to launch four years from now. Customers most likely would be nations without space programs. Michael Gold, director of the company’s Washington office, has been to Wallops to explore the idea of using the Atlas V launch system — co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. 

Bigelow currently launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. “Potentially bringing human space flight to Virginia would be frankly the largest economic impact to hit the state in a generation,” says Gold. “We have a very strong interest in Wallops and utilizing it … and avoiding the red tape you might face in Florida.”

Only four U.S. spaceports are licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration to send rockets into orbit — the others are Vandenberg Air Force Base, the Kennedy Space Flight Center at Cape Canaveral and the Alaska Space Flight Authority in Kodiak. So Virginia has a foothold, but that’s about it.

Wallops is located on a barrier island near Chincoteague in Accomack County on the Eastern Shore. It has long been a poor stepchild inside NASA when it comes to high-profile programs, even though it employs about 1,700 people. However, that’s changing. “The commonwealth is a leader,” says Billie Reed, executive director of the MARS facility. “But we can’t sit on our laurels. We don’t have laurels to sit on.”

Virginia’s space-related industry extends beyond Wallops and Orbital Sciences. Langley Research Center, NASA’s oldest field center, is based in Hampton. Reston-based International Launch Services in July helped put an EchoStar satellite into orbit from a launch site in Kazakhstan. Since 2001, Space Adventures, based in Vienna,  has arranged for seven wealthy clients to visit the International Space Station by flying on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. And Northrop Grumman Corp., which will move its headquarters to Fairfax County next year, produces sensors for space-based missions, including the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the Defense Support Program.

Virginia has put some effort into supporting a commercial space sector, anchored by NASA Wallops. In 2004, governors Bob Erlich of Maryland and Mark Warner of Virginia created the MARS partnership. And in recent years the General Assembly passed two laws to make the state more friendly to space transportation companies. The 2007 Virginia Space Liability and Immunity Act gives companies some legal shelter in the event of a mishap, and the Zero G Tax Act of 2008 provides an exemption to companies doing business in the state with plans to launch from MARS or to do spaceflight training.

The FAA praised Virginia as “the most progressive state in the country” for its tort reform. Plus, the state provided $26 million in bond financing for the improvements needed for the Taurus II launch, with much of that to be repaid by Orbital.

Reed, however, thinks the state could do more. “I’ve only got seven people, for Pete’s sake. Alaska launches a bottle rocket every year or so, and they’ve got 45 people” employed in their space authority, he says. “We’ve got to get on with it.”

Reed’s connections with the public and private sectors have been a big advantage. In 2006 he was involved in Orbital’s negotiations on using the MARS facilities at Wallops for launching an Air Force-built TacSat-2 satellite on its smaller Minotaur rocket. So when Orbital engineers started looking for a place to do a test of its Taurus II, they already knew Reed and spaceport manager Rick Baldwin. “The Air Force loved the fact that they basically had just two people to talk to,” says Laurie Naismith, director of government relations for MARS.

Wallops has another advantage — its location. Rockets launched from Wallops go south over the Atlantic Ocean, passing over part of Brazil before reaching orbit. A launch from Florida has to go north and then cross over western Europe. As private-sector companies get involved in their own space race, insurance companies likely will prefer the safer route over water. “There’s not a better spot on the globe to get to the International Space Station than from our launch pads,” Naismith says. Orbital also also noted that launches from Wallops are less likely to be bumped by NASA missions. Plus, MARS and Wallops staffers pitch their location as a good fit for entrepreneurs. “We have a low-cost rapid response, and that’s what the commercial sector wants,” says Amy G. Bull, director of the Wallops Research Park.

If Wallops and the MARS facility can begin to draw more companies, the research park is a likely spot for them to settle. Opened last year, it has 202 acres next to Wallops. BaySys International, a 280-employee company that customizes wide-body jets (see story on page 24) plans to build a $25 million hangar at the park with access to Wallops’ 8,000-foot-long runway. It now leases a NASA hangar on Wallops property, but that building is too small and security makes it difficult to give access to clients, especially those from outside the U.S. “The park offers the opportunity to be right there where all this activity is going on, yet not inside the gates where you have all the security concerns,” Bull says. “We want opportunities in Accomack County. We want family-wage jobs and we want people who go away to college to be able to come back and [find] a job.”

Nonetheless, the push to privatize some of NASA’s functions and get the private sector involved in both unmanned and manned space exploration is encountering opposition in Congress. Members from states with NASA facilities are fighting efforts to reduce some its programs to make room for private-sector contracts like the Taurus II.

The House response to Obama’s NASA budget is less supportive of commercial development in space than is the Senate bill that passed the Finance Committee in late July. Sen. Mark Warner proposed an amendment that would have restored funding for the commercial crew program to the levels Obama proposed, but it wasn’t included in the final version.

John Gedmark, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Commercial Spaceflight Federation, called the Senate bill “a good first step” that would get NASA working the bigger challenges of space exploration. “It should not be in the business of just operating this regular trucking business to [supply] the space station,” he says. Let companies like Orbital and Space X and others do that work, he says. “The private sector is willing to put its money in … it’s really a win-win.”

Bigelow Aerospace’s Gold says critics of the Obama NASA budget are wrong to question the safety and experience of companies wanting to get involved in human space transportation. They’ve been doing the work for years already under NASA’s direction, he says. “All we’re really talking about is a change of procurement practice, from cost-plus to fixed price,” he says. “This is not entrusting the nation’s future to fly-by-night entities.”

He’s especially annoyed at GOP members who praise free enterprise but won’t support it for space travel. “If your party is about leveraging private investment, this president’s proposal does all that,” he says. “If you could fuel a rocket on hypocrisy, the House Republicans would have us on Pluto by now.”

Orbital is waiting with other commercial interests to see what kind of federal dollars will be involved. The company, whose headquarters includes seven buildings in Dulles, is well-positioned for now, with both private-sector work and government contracts, including a recently announced five-year deal with NASA worth up to $310 million. And it’s comfortable working out of Wallops. “We’ve launched out of Wallops far more often than anybody else, and we have an excellent relationship with the onsite staff,” spokesman Barron Beneski says.

The long-term continuation of that relationship could be a key element in the growth of Virginia’s aerospace industry, which, including the aviation sector, now numbers 350 companies.  Randy Burdette, executive director of the Virginia Department of Aviation, has started a study with Virginia Commonwealth University to measure exactly how much economic impact those companies have in the state and hopes the information will help him push for more state support.

“When the governor talks about economic engines [in Virginia] he frequently talks about Dulles International Airport and the Virginia Port Authority,” Burdette says. “We think the third leg of that could be Wallops Island. Fifteen or 20 years from now, what can it be for Virginia, what can it be for the country? We need to think big.”

 

Welcome to Orbital Taurus II Home Page

 

WALLOPS ISLAND -- A huge tank that will hold liquid oxygen for Orbital Sciences' Taurus II rocket is making its way from Mexico City, where it was made by a company called Envases, to the launch site on Wallops Island.

The 56-wheeled vehicle transporting the tank was entering Georgia as of Tuesday afternoon and is expected to arrive at Wallops by mid- to late-July, according to Orbital Sciences' launch site manager Norm Bobczynski.

The 80,000-gallon tank weighs more than 200,000 pounds and is 125 feet long and 13 feet in diameter.

An eight-minute video posted on YouTube shows the gargantuan tank being transported along the highway on a 56-wheeled vehicle.

In other construction activity taking place at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in preparation for the 2011 demonstration launch of the Taurus II rocket, a 300-foot water tower was fully erected as of Friday. The tower is the second tallest structure on Wallops Island, next to a meteorological tower which stands 325 feet tall.

The new water tower can be seen from Route 13, Bobczynski said. It holds 250,000 gallons of water that will be used for acoustic suppression and to cool down components.

The Horizontal Integration Facility being built on the island also is nearing completion. The building is where stages of Orbital Sciences' Taurus II rocket will be assembled.

The first stage of the rocket itself is expected to arrive in mid-August in Wilmington, after being transported by ship from the Ukraine.

Some $90 million of construction is under way on Wallops Island in connection with Orbital's contract with NASA for multiple missions to carry cargo to the International Space Station.

cvaughn@dmg.gannett.com

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