Briefs: OTV/X-37B update; NASA costs vs DoD costs

An update on the OTV/X-37B now scheduled for launch on an Atlas V on April 19th: Secret Military Space Plane Primed For Test Launch - SPACE.com.
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Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs, apparently wants NASA to continue to subsidize DoD rockets: Air Force warns of increased launch costs - Air Force News - Mar.12.10.

Not clear from this article if he is talking just about the reduction in solid rocket motor production that would come from the end of Shuttle and the cancellation of Ares I. Payton has also been surprisingly negative about the possibility of crew flights with the EELVs. The EELV program was originally based on the notion that the vehicles would be used not just for military payloads but also for commercial satellites. The higher launch rate would drive down costs to DoD. The comsat business, however, has not grown as much as expected and the EELVs have also not been competitive with Arianespace and the other comsat launchers. So the cost to DoD of the EELVs have been higher than expected. One would think, that if one or both of the EELVs began launching crews then the higher rate would lower costs to DoD. Payton, however, has claimed, as I understand it, that the modifications to the vehicles to make them suitable for crews plus the need to have more versions of the vehicles could raise costs rather than lower them.

This seems very short sighted. Even if costs did rise in the short term, they should come down long term as ULA's launch rate grows and the vehicles become even more robust and reliable. Crew launch would certainly be a huge plus for ULA's business.

Also, Payton has not addressed the effect of a successful SpaceX Falcon 9 on DoD costs. It appears that Payton and the Air Force expect to use EELVs for the next half century and don't want to consider the possibility that a new entrant could lower launch prices and mess up their nice neat plans.

Update: Gary Hudson adds a comment here on what he believes Payton is worried about.

Rand Simberg posts an item about the AF article: Huh? - Transterrestrial Musings

Posted 03/13/10 | 12:05:18 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Military Space

Comments

Gary is worried that once NASA starts to depend upon EELVs for launch, they will demand changes to the vehicles for "human rating" that will drive up prices. This is a fair concern, and can only be dealt with by having the NASA Administrator and the Secretary of the Air Force sign an agreement that NASA won't require any changes that alter the vehicles more than some slight percentage of current cost.

Posted by Gary C Hudson at 03/13/10 12:22:35

We found no reason why use of Atlas V and Delta 4 had to deviate from a "white tail" model where the same boosters are used for both kinds of missions with an "add on" fault detection system. The sensors for the fault detection can stay installed on both models, and the very short list of upgrades that would be nice to do are nice to do for both manned and unmanned missions.

I agree that USAF and NRO need to be cautious and need to retain ultimate authority over the change control board to ensure that desired "improvements" don't harm the reliability of a working booster, but that's a risk to manage, not an assured problem.

Posted by Jeff Greason at 03/13/10 18:53:51

I agree completely that the concern is over rated. I'd fly Atlas today, unmodified (except for a failure section system which should be part of the crew spacecraft).

Posted by Gary C Hudson at 03/13/10 19:11:59

I hate to say it, but considering the cost of some of the payloads going up on the current incarnation of the Atlas V and Delta IV, the launchers themselves are likely to already be at quite a high standard of reliability. Any man-rating of those vehicles is going to involve things like a launch escape system and/or ejection system to "safe" the passenger compartment from the rest of the vehicle in the event of a destructive abort or catastrophic failure.

This so-called human spaceflight "man-rating" standards have yet to be applied to any actual vehicle, so some bureaucrat claiming that changes must happen to these vehicles in order to meet this imaginary standard is something that needs to be evaluated about anyway. I'd have to agree that NASA should keep their hands off these important vehicles for the Air Force if substantial changes are implemented that drive up costs. On the other hand, I don't see much of a difference in terms of the reliability required for a multi-billion dollar spacecraft sent up by the Air Force vs. manned spaceflight. If anything, NASA shows it will cut corners when sending folks up into space instead of robots.

Posted by Robert Horning at 03/13/10 23:38:27

Space News had an earlier story about this issue that was a bit more detailed:

http://spacenews.com/policy...

The military officials quoted in the story don't seem quite as pessimistic.

According to Lori Garver, there were high level discussions between NASA and the Air Force for six months about the ramifications of the new policy.

This seems very credible. Some of the outside experts that Augustine and NASA relied also do a lot of work for the military space folks. It's difficult to imagine they would have ignored these matters. My guess is that the impacts on the military were judged to be manageable. There are trade-offs in every policy.

Posted by D. Messier at 03/14/10 02:10:29

Generally, the only things a proven launcher needs to be man rated is a LAS and a fault detection system. An LAS should be a standard part of any capsule design anyways.

Anything more is just bureaucratic hand waving to justify loading more cost, paperwork, and government/union employees on. The only man rating the bureaucrats really care about is how many bureaucrats they can force a NewSpace launch company to pay for.

Posted by Mike Lorrey at 03/14/10 16:41:34

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