NASA Commercial Crew Development updates (renamed)

[neoadorable]

thanks for this Doc, but why are the Sierra people still "reviewing" stuff? what are they Ash from Alien? "we're still collating". get on with it, we have a solar system to colonize :rofl:

[DocM]

The readiness review is NASA making sure Sierra's work meets their specs before letting the captive carry flights begin and paying them for the milestone. Call it oversight.

[neoadorable]

why can't i call it being overly cautious? :)

[DocM]

Works for me, but this IS the NASA bureacracy we're talking about. Even under Space Act Agreements it can be onerous. Imaging if they were using the usual FAR system that will drive SLS up to $38B.

[neoadorable]

that 38 bill is really scaring me...i can't help but imagine a fleet of Mars colony ships having been paid for with that much money...

[DocM]

The next step towards a commercial crew capability.

Link....

A COMMERCIAL CREW INTEGRATED CAPABILITY

Solicitation Number: NASA-CCiCap

Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Office: Kennedy Space Center

Location: Office of Procurement

Solicitation Number: NASA-CCiCap

Notice Type: Pre-solicitation

Synopsis: Added: Jan 23, 2012 10:01 am

The following information is preliminary and subject to change.In 2009, NASA began commercial crew initiatives to stimulate the private sector to develop and demonstrate human spaceflight capabilities that could ultimately lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for both commercial and Government customers. Those initiatives focused on maturing designs of elements of a crew transportation system (CTS). NASA intends to begin a new initiative, the Commercial Crew integrated Capability(CCiCap), to facilitate industry's development of an integrated CTS. This activity is expected to result in significant maturation of commercial CTS. Facilitating development of this U.S. capability is expected to provide national economic benefit and support safe, reliable, and cost effective transportation to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO).

NASA intends to solicit proposals from U.S. space industry participants to mature the design and development of an integrated CTS which includes spacecraft, launch vehicle,ground and mission systems. Selected CCiCap participants will receive funded Space Act Agreements (SAA's) under NASA's Other Transactions Authority within the National Aeronautics and Space Act, 51 U.S.C. 20113. NASA intends to select a portfolio of multiple CCiCap SAA's that best meet the CCiCap goals within the available funding. An Announcement soliciting proposals is currently planned to be released on or about February 7, 2012, with proposals due approximately 45 days later. The award of multiple SAA's is planned for July / August 2012 with a base period through the end of May 2014. NASA does not intend to issue a draft of the Announcement but does plan to conduct a pre-proposal conference within two weeks after release of the Announcement to discuss the CCiCap activity and answer questions. NASA will only consider proposals from U.S. commercial providers as defined by the Commercial Space Act of 1998.

All questions, comments or other correspondence shall be submitted to the Agreement Officer at KSC-CCiCap@mail.nasa.gov.Please indicate your interest in this Announcement by January 30, 2012, by submitting the information below to KSC-CCiCap@mail.nasa.gov. Your non-binding letter of intent should include the company name, point of contact, address, phone number, e-mail, and nature of interest as either a primary participant or team member. Potential respondents are responsible for monitoring the Internet site below for the release of the Announcement and for downloading their own copy of the Announcement and any amendments.

The Internet site, or URL, for the Kennedy Space Center Business Opportunities page is: http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=76 An Ombudsman will be appointed See NASA Specific Note B.This is not a solicitation for proposals and NASA does not intend to respond to questions about this synopsis at this time. As necessary, further information will be provided as amendments to this synopsis.

Contracting Office Address: NASA/John F. Kennedy Space Center, Procurement, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899

Point of Contact(s): C. David Shreve, Contracting Officer, Phone 321-867-3456, Fax 321-867-1166, Email david.shreve@nasa.gov - Rogelio Curiel, Contracting Officer, Phone 321-867-7498, Fax 321-867-3859,

Email rogelio.curiel@nasa.gov

[neoadorable]

Hopefully some new contenders will emerge

Is this in any way open to non-US entities?

[DocM]

Has to be a program based in the US, though foreign contribution is OK. Probably way too late for that though.

[DocM]

Ramping up - NASA willing to add money etc.

Link....

Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | NASA poised to make further commercial crew investment

NASA poised to make further commercial crew investment

NASA officials said Tuesday they intend to award multiple companies up to $500 million each over the next two years to maintain private sector competition in the agency's commercial crew program and keep the effort on schedule to enable the resumption of U.S. human spaceflight by 2017.

?

The agency released an announcement for proposals to industry Tuesday, starting the third phase of the commercial crew program, which aims to invest in the development of spacecraft and launch vehicles capable of hauling astronaut crews to the International Space Station.

The commercial crew program is the key to ending NASA's reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for human transportation to and from the space station since the retirement of the space shuttle. NASA officials expect commercial crew service to begin no later than 2017, based on current budget projections.

Ed Mango, manager of NASA's commercial crew program, said the space agency plans to award Space Act Agreements, or SAAs, to multiple contractors by August. The agreements will each be worth between $300 million and $500 million, and NASA will make payments as the companies accomplish predetermined milestones.

Brent Jett, NASA's deputy commercial crew program manager, said he is confident the agency will be able to award at least two companies agreements of that value.

Proposals are due March 23, according to the solicitation.

"What our overall approach is during this SAA is we are an investor, a technical investor and an investor bringing money to the table in order to get American industry to get to a crew demonstration capability," Mango said Tuesday at a forum with members of industry at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Commercial Crew integrated Capability, or CCiCap, phase of the program will mature the designs of combined space transportation systems, which include a spacecraft to carry at least four astronauts and a launch vehicle to safely dispatch the crews from Earth.

The objectives of the CCiCap agreements are to complete the design of the commercial spaceships and ready the vehicles for construction and certification.

"We need an integrated design," Mango said. "I can't emphasize that enough."

NASA planned to issue a commercial crew solicitation in December for fixed-price contracts, but the agency's fiscal year 2012 budget provided for $406 million for the commercial crew program, less than half the funding level requested by the White House.

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The smaller budget, coupled with uncertain funding in future years, compelled NASA officials to revert to Space Act Agreements, which have been used in the first two phases of the commercial crew program.

NASA now has funded Space Act Agreements with Boeing Co., SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Blue Origin worth a combined $316 million. Each company is working on a commercial crew spacecraft, and the agreements run through May.

"I can tell you that since November, the program has had to pivot because of a number of different things," Mango said. "The biggest is uncertainty in the future of our budget."

Fixed-price contracts require a more stable, higher budget. Space Act Agreements require NASA's commercial partners to inject private capital in their development efforts.

The Space Act Agreements will run at least 21 months from August 2012 until May 2014, roughly the same period the contracts would have covered.

"The overall net plan that we have in place will still mitigate the risks needed to understand certification in order to go fly crew safely," Mango said.

In the coming competition, the commercial partners will also be expected to demonstrate processes to analyze, quantify and understand safety risks, institute procedures and testing to reduce the risks, and propose criteria and plans to certify their spacecraft and rockets for human spaceflight.

NASA is requesting companies provide lists of optional milestones extending beyond May 2014, both at a fixed funding profile of $400 million per year and an optimum, more costly, profile with an accelerated schedule to begin commercial crew service by the middle of the decade.

"We think the most we might be able to give [the commercial partners] is about $400 million a year [each]," Mango said.

The optional milestones must outline continued development through a crewed orbital test flight, the final step before a transportation system is declared ready for round-trip service to the space station.

[neoadorable]

Why 2017? Thought Dragon was gonna be crew ready by late this year! This is all very confusing

[DocM]

Remember when I posted that Congress (mostly the Senate) had only given NASA $400M of the $800M for commercial crew they had asked for? Bingo. Even with the CC outfits racing NASA doesn't have the funding to pay for doing the milestone payments faster.

That said - with the Russian debacles the heat is on to get crew faster. One way to do this short term is for Dragon's flight to ISS to go perfectly or close to it, which is why they're taking their time and double/triple checking everything. If that happens the ball is in the Senates court.

[neoadorable]

Can understand caution, can't understand not having access to space...not acceptable!

[DocM]

Agreed!! Congress needs to get off their asses and get serious about CCDev.

NASA just put out a new CCDev promo clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRPQtDuPSfo

[DocM]

A Flight Global article has interesting tidbits that maybe Atlas V is just for the Boeing CST-100's test phase -

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-details-bid-to-win-nasa-shuttle-replacement-370213/

Not: square [] brackets = my comments

Boeing has released crucial details of its commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap) bid that it delivered to NASA on 23 March.

The company has twice won awards under the commercial crew development (CCDev) programme, predecessor to CCiCap, to work on its CST-100 capsule. CCDev was meant to stimulate development of vehicles to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

"It's really in two phases," says John Mulholland, the capsule's programme manager, of the latest bid. "There's a 21-month base period where we'll accomplish our critical design review and a significant amount of risk reduction design testing, and we will culminate at the end of the option period with a two-crew flight test."

Mulholland confirms that Boeing will use a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V in 412 configuration, adding that human-rating the Atlas V is part of Boeing's CCiCap bid. Currently the Atlas is being human-rated by ULA. Under an unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA, ULA gets access to NASA's technical assistance, but no financial help. Boeing's formal inclusion of Atlas allows its human-rating progress to be funded milestones for the CST-100 programme.

Despite Boeing's relation to the Atlas - ULA is a joint Lockheed/Boeing business venture -- Mulholland confirms that discussions have been held with SpaceX [Falcon 9] and ATK [Liberty] for possible launches when CCiCap transitions to a services contract in 2016. Both SpaceX and ATK have submitted bids for CCiCap and compete with ULA for launch business.

[Falcon 9 or Liberty if/when it transitions to service flights? Must be the anticipated costs of Atlas V are high. IMO Liberty, a re-design of the failed NASA Ares I and regarded by most as a long shot, is a fig leaf for a possible background deal given the recent Boeing - SpaceX joint communications satellite deal.]

"NASA has requested a minimum of one milestone per quarter, and we've got a little bit more than one per quarter that we've estimated," says Mulholland. "And when we've looked at it, we've set milestones for every different aspect of the programme."

Boeing's CCiCap bid, if selected for the full, $500 million award, "gets us all the way through the two-crewed flight test, which would be our last certification milestone before we entered into the service phase", Mulholland adds.

NASA declines to comment on either the CCiCap bids or the selection dates, but several parties with knowledge of the situation expect award announcements by 1 August.

[neoadorable]

where did this Liberty rocket come from? just build the 4000 ton Orion already, people. ten of those and we got the solar system done.

[DocM]

Remember the failed Ares-1 from the NASA Constellation moon program, the one that needed tons of damping hardware in its enlarged Shuttle SRB first stage (5 segments instead of 4 in the Shuttle stack) so its vibrations wouldn't liquify Orion's passengers?

Well - that solid first stage was made by ATK and Liberty is their latest idea for getting a return on their investment. This time instead of using a revamped & updated J2 upper stage engine from Saturn V (which is still years behind schedule) they want to use what is essentially an Ariane 5 ECA first stage as an upper stage - something that'll take no small amount of engineering in itself since its Vulcan 2 engine isn't yet rated for high altitude starting.

File under long shots.

[DocM]

2 fully funded and one 50% funded awards will be made. Companies that don't get awards can continue on their own dime and have access to the NASA labs & centers.

MEDIA ADVISORY : M12-143

NASA to Announce New Agreements for Next Phase of Commercial Crew Development

WASHINGTON -- NASA will issue a news release to announce new agreements with industry partners for its Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative at 9 a.m. EDT, Friday, Aug. 3. At 10 a.m. NASA will host a news briefing from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website. NASA also will host a follow-up teleconference for media representatives with detailed questions at 10:45 a.m., immediately following the briefing.

Through CCiCap, NASA is stimulating the private sector to develop and demonstrate human spaceflight capabilities that could ultimately lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for both commercial and government customers.

CCiCap is an initiative of NASA's Commercial Crew Program and a priority of the Obama Administration. The objective of the program is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. After the capability is matured, NASA could purchase commercial services to meet its space station crew transportation needs.

Televised news briefing participants at Kennedy are:

-- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden

-- Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana

-- Commercial Crew Program Manager Ed Mango

News teleconference participants are:

-- Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Directorate William Gerstenmaier

-- Director for Commercial Spaceflight Development Philip McAlister

-- Deputy Manager for Commercial Crew Program Brent Jett

Media representatives wishing to attend the televised briefing in person should arrive at Kennedy's Press Site by 9:30 a.m. for access to the OSB-II facility, where the event will take place. U.S. journalists without Kennedy accreditation must request credentials by 3 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 2. International media accreditation for this event is closed. Badges for this specific event can be picked up at the Kennedy Space Center Badging Office on State Road 405. Media must apply for credentials online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must email their name, media affiliation and telephone number to Trent Perrotto at trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov by 9 a.m. Friday, Aug. 3.

For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to the 10 a.m. streaming video of the announcement, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Audio of the 10:45 a.m. teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

To access presentation graphics during the telecon and for more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program and CCiCap, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew