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NASA hopes to have a new head of the agency's manned flight department by the end of the year in replacement of Bill Gerstenmaier, who has held this position for nearly 14 years before his Reallocation in July, as the Trump administration pushed men to land on the moon by 2024, said Wednesday a NASA official.
Until then, NASA will not embark on a new target launch date for the first flight of its new heavy-launch rocket, called the Space Launch System, according to Ken Bowersox, who has become the deputy administrator by interim of NASA's human exploration and exploitation activities. Mission direction after the ousting of Gerstenmaier in July.
Bowersox, a former astronaut who also served as SpaceX's chief executive, said on Wednesday that NASA director Jim Bridenstine and other senior NASA officials were working hard and talking with Gerstenmaier's permanent replacement candidates. .
"I think they have a goal to achieve with this process by the end of the year and that it is a difficult job," Bowersox said at a news conference. Hearing before the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. . "We want to give them all the time they need because we want them to find the right candidate."
The chairman of NASA's aerospace safety advisory committee said on September 6 that it was "imperative" to appoint a permanent leader to oversee NASA's manned space flights, as the agency seeks to respect the 2024 deadline set by Vice President Mike Pence to send humans back to the moon.
"As the agency moves forward, we are encouraging NASA leaders to become aware of and respond aggressively to the impact of change," said Patricia Sanders, President of NASA. Advisory Committee on Security. "It is important to recognize the feeling of uncertainty that accompanies a void in a key leadership position and to meet the need for a stable and credible leadership for the future."
NASA and the subcontractor teams continue to focus on key elements of the Artemis moon landing program, such as the space launch system, the Orion crew capsule, a mini-space station lunar orbit called Gateway and a lunar lander with human evaluation.
"NASA staff continues to progress and progress in recorded programs," said Sanders. "It's in their DNA. However, it is imperative to positively confirm a specific direction given by a permanent leader and we must not let a sense of uncertainty linger at this critical time. "
Sanders said the panel had received "anecdotal evidence" that Bridenstine's directional change to NASA's manned space flight programs "indicates that timing is paramount and extraordinary steps must be taken to this timetable, even at the expense of security. "
"If NASA leaders have firmly stated that this was not the case and have in fact made decisions such as the continuation of the SLS green course (a full test of the SLS main stadium), which reinforce the priorities more higher than expected, the message needs to be reiterated with force and often, "said Sanders.
In August, Bridenstine said NASA was looking for a new chief of manned flights at NASA headquarters.
"We are doing research at the national level," he said on August 21. "The challenge is to … when it comes to this type of activity, there are very few people on the planet who have experience of human flight missions, who have experience of program management. We are, at this stage, very open, considering all possible alternatives of different people with different types of expertise, likely to lead the exploration and human operations. So at this point, we have not even begun to narrow the field. "
At that time, Bridenstine announced that NASA would begin to narrow its list of candidates "in the coming weeks," said Wednesday in a Bowersox statement a potentially longer schedule before the appointment of a new flight officer inhabited.
Bowersox announced Wednesday that NASA's first space flight test flight, originally scheduled for late 2017, is not expected to take place before the end of 2020.
The first SLS test flight with an unmanned Orion capsule, called Artemis 1, will probably take several months or more in 2021 or later.
The launch schedule for the first SLS test flight has been evolving since delays and cost overruns have pushed the launch beyond a commitment made in November 2018 by NASA to Congress . NASA is probably still in a few months before proposing a new official launch schedule.
Bowersox said that once NASA appoints the permanent head of the Human Exploration and Operations mission, the new manager would be responsible for determining a new target launch date for Artemis 1, with a schedule providing for a deadline. to deal with unforeseen problems that may occur. during the tests.
"Just after appointing a permanent associate director, we hope that a month or two later, this person will have the time to set a date when she will be ready to commit to Congress," he said. Bowersox Wednesday to a question from the subcommittee chair, Kendra Horn, D-Oklahoma.
"We work internally on a schedule, but it's an ideal timeline," Bowersox said.
Engineers at NASA's Michoud assembly site in New Orleans ended Thursday the structural integration of the first phase of the SLS. Workers installed the engine section at the rear end of the base platform of 64 meters (212 feet), after manufacturing difficulties and equipment of the engine section resulted in long delays in production in Michoud.
"NASA has taken a historic first step by completing the final joint of the NASA Space Launch System's main stage structure, the world's most powerful rocket," said Julie Bassler, stage manager at NASA SLS, in a statement. "Now, to complete the step, NASA will add the four RS-25 engines and complete the latest integrated functional tests for avionics and propulsion. It's an exciting time as we complete the first production of the complex core that will provide the power to send the Artemis 1 mission to the moon. "
In the coming months, teams will install the RS-25's four main engines on the main stage. The engines are remnants of the space shuttle program and consume extremely cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen stored in the propellant tanks of the main stage.
"The sooner we can launch Artemis 1, at this point, is approximately at the end of next year," Bowersox said Wednesday. "We have to take him out of the factory (at Michoud's), which we think will happen at the end of this year."
The main phase will take Michaw's NASA Pegasus barge to the Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi, where it will be converted into a test rig for a series of refueling, pressurizing and engine tests. The tests will result in a complete firing of the four RS-25 engines lasting more than eight minutes, as part of a test called "the green runway".
Bowersox said that the SLS core phase would be tested for at least five or six months at Stennis before being delivered to the Kennedy Space Center for launch processing, which would take five or another six months.
"If you start dealing with weather delays, potential technical problems, everything we have to deal with after engine start-up, that adds extra time, and it's hard to say exactly what will happen to That we get there, "he said.
By the end of this year, NASA will have spent more than $ 16 billion to develop the space launch system since 2011. The figure does not include expenses related to the Orion crew capsule or systems Ground Kennedy Space Center to support launch operations of the SLS.
NASA initially introduced the launcher ahead of schedule as the most cost-effective solution for developing a new heavy-lift rocket. The SLS uses remnants of shuttle engines, shuttle-derived belt thrusters, an upper stage based on a model designed for the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket, as well as an existing factory and launch pad.
Despite repeated delays, the Government Accountability Office, a surveillance group, revealed in June that NASA had paid hundreds of millions of dollars in incentive compensation fees to Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the main subcontractors of the scene. SLS and Orion satellite.
Bowersox said Thursday that the agency is reassessing its decisions regarding the approval of incentive payments to SLS and Orion contractors.
"I think we can all agree that we do not see the performance we want, so we should look at it," he said.
Other key components for the first flight of SLS test are ready for the final launch treatment. The upper portion of the SLS has been delivered to the Florida launch site and all segments of its two solid propellant propellants have been filled with propellant and are ready to ship to Cape Canaveral from a Northrop Grumman facility, in Utah.
The SLS Mobile Launch Tower is completing its final tests on Kennedy Launchpad 39B before NASA declares its readiness to stack the heavy rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. Kennedy's ground systems are lagging behind their original schedule, but are expected to be ready well before the arrival of the SLS base phase in Florida.
Meanwhile, the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission is at the Kennedy Space Center being assembled and tested for shipment to NASA's Plum Brook Station in Ohio later this year. The engineers there will submit the Orion crew module and its European construction service module to a thermal vacuum test in a room designed to replicate airless and icy space conditions.
The Orion spacecraft will return to KSC before final preparations for the launch of the Artemis 1 mission, which will place it in a distant orbit around the moon for several weeks before returning to Earth.
Assuming that the Artemis 1 mission reaches its targets and is launched by mid-2021, NASA could launch the Artemis 2 mission on the second SLS / Orion flight in 2022. Artemis 2 will transport up to four astronauts during of a round-trip flight around the moon. Earth, setting the stage for the Artemis 3 mission in 2024, which, according to NASA, will attempt the first human landing on the moon since 1972.
But the SLS and Orion programs are only part of the architecture required to send astronauts to the moon.
NASA is overseeing the development of a lunar orbit mini-space station called Gateway, which will serve as a refueling station, temporary living quarters and a shelter for astronauts heading for the moon's surface. NASA has chosen Maxar Technologies for the construction of a power and propulsion module for the gangway equipped with high power plasma thrusters for maneuvering in space. The agency has also appointed Northrop Grumman for a sole-source contract for the construction of a mini-housing ship refueling module of the company's Cygnus space station.
A human lander is also needed for a return to the moon by NASA astronauts.
NASA has published a pair of proposals for proposals on the system called "Human Landing System" for the publication of a final application in the coming weeks. NASA will ask American companies to build a lunar landing gear with two or three elements: a descent phase, an ascent phase and possibly a transfer vehicle to move from the bridge to a low lunar orbit.
Bowersox said on Wednesday that Congress was to provide $ 1.6 billion in additional funding to NASA by the end of the year to allow the agency to revive the development of the company. a landing craft on the moon.
The Trump administration has asked Congress for an additional $ 1.6 billion in May as part of an amendment to the White House budget request for fiscal year 2020.
The Congress has not finalized any appropriations bill for fiscal year 2020, which begins Oct. 1.
The House passed its version of NASA's 2020 budget bill in June, but the bill did not include an additional $ 1.6 billion for the Artemis program. The Senate is expected to announce a 2020 appropriations bill for NASA next week and the differences will be resolved during the negotiations of the conference committee.
In the meantime, Congress will likely adopt a resolution before October 1 to continue funding NASA and other government agencies until November 21, giving legislators more time to approve a bill. appropriations for 2020 definitive.
The version in the House of the resolution in force does not contain any provision allowing NASA to spend the additional $ 1.6 billion requested by the White House.
"The amendment, and the ability to spend that money if we have a continuous resolution, is essential to reach the lunar surface by 2024," Bowersox said. "We must launch our human landing system program."
NASA's goal is to award contracts to up to four companies to start working on a human-rated undercarriage before the end of this year. Without the $ 1.6 billion increase, it would not be possible, said Bowersox.
"This year, we need this budget amendment to get the landing systems, get these contracts, because it's our long pole to reach the lunar surface," he said.
"It slips after the end of the year."
After funding nine-month studies with up to four companies, NASA plans to select two companies to continue working on the program through the construction, launch and in-flight demonstrations of their lunar landing gear. The agency announced that she was not planning to conduct unmanned descent on the moon with the human landing system before boarding astronauts for the attempt. landing in 2024.
At its last meeting, members of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Committee recommended that NASA and its subcontractors review the plan.
"The committee would also strongly suggest that NASA and the subcontractors consider the merit of including an unarmed test of the human landing system prior to the first crewed mission as a major risk-reduction exercise. "said Sandra Magnus, former astronaut and member. Security Advisory Council.
Like elements of the bridge, the components of the multi-stage lunar landing gear would launch on several commercial rockets at lower cost, and not on the space launch system of NASA, in accordance with the current plan of the space agency. The elements of the LG would be assembled and verified at the bridge before the astronauts arrive on an Orion spacecraft.
Doug Cooke, a former NASA director who also testified at Wednesday 's congressional hearing, said that NASA' s project to use commercial launchers for gateway and docking elements. LG "does not make much sense to me".
Cooke argued that NASA should accelerate the development of a higher advanced exploration stage, or EUS, for the SLS, an upgrade known as SLS Block 1B. In this configuration, the space launch system could launch Orion crew vehicles and carry a lunar lander or other cargo during the same mission, rather than launching cheaper commercial rockets several times to pre-prepare the aircrafts. Gateway components and Lander near the moon.
A document of "Truth in Testimony" published with his prepared statement shows that Boeing, the main contractor of the SLS and EUS main phase, has paid Cooke more than $ 465,000 since 2017. In the paper, his consulting work with Boeing is described as "sometimes related to the subject" of Wednesday's hearing.
Cooke's consulting work with Boeing was not mentioned at Wednesday's hearing.
"I think it's very important to be able to launch as much integrated hardware as possible without having to assemble it (in the space)," said Cooke, a former NASA Associate Administrator for the United States. # 39; exploration. "Being able to launch an integrated lander at one time is a simpler, simpler and more efficient approach. Its high volume and mass capacity allow it to be the size needed to transport the various elements to the moon. "
NASA is still considering introducing a top-tier exploration for the SLS in the mid-2020s, but agency officials have indicated that the use of commercial rockets for Gateway elements and lunar would be less expensive than modernizing the SLS and increasing the SLS launch rate.
NASA officials and the Trump administration have not said how much the space agency might need in 2021 and the following years for the accelerated landing program. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in June that the entire program would likely cost between $ 20 billion and $ 30 billion, in addition to previously planned agency budgets.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, and Chair of the House's Science, Space and Technology Committee, said having a new director associated with NASA's manned flight directorate was " critical to the success "of the agency's exploration initiatives.
"We were told not to expect a cost estimate or budget for the President's Moon program until next year," she said. "The rhetoric about US leadership in space and the advancement of women's role in spaceflight is very good, but it does not replace a well-planned, well-managed exploration program well funded and well executed. Today, the Congress does not have a credible basis for believing that the President's lunar program for 2024 meets any of these criteria.
"In short, if Congress wants to support such a program, the administration will have to do much more to provide such evidence," she said.
When asked Wednesday, how confident he was that NASA would be able to land astronauts on the moon by 2024, Bowersox said, "What trust? I would not bet my eldest son's birthday gift or anything like that. We work in this direction as hard as possible. "
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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