[meteorite-list] NASA Awards Space Launch System Advanced Booster Contracts

[Ron Baalke]

Oct. 1, 2012

Rachel Kraft 
Headquarters, Washington      
202-358-1100 
rachel.h.kraft at nasa.gov 

Kim Henry 
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 
256-544-0034 
kimberly.m.henry at nasa.gov 


RELEASE: 12-339

NASA AWARDS SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM ADVANCED BOOSTER CONTRACTS

WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded three contracts totaling $137.3 million 
to improve the affordability, reliability and performance of an 
advanced booster for the Space Launch System (SLS). The awardees will 
develop engineering demonstrations and risk reduction concepts for a 
future version of the SLS, a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an 
entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. 

The initial 77-ton (70-metric-ton) SLS configuration will use two 
5-segment solid rocket boosters similar to the boosters that helped 
power the space shuttle to orbit. The evolved 143-ton 
(130-metric-ton) SLS vehicle will require an advanced booster with 
more thrust than any existing U.S. liquid- or solid-fueled boosters. 
These new initiatives will demonstrate and examine advanced booster 
concepts and hardware demonstrations during a 30-month period. 

The companies selected for SLS Advanced Booster contracts are: 
-- ATK Launch Systems Inc. of Brigham City, Utah, which will 
demonstrate innovations for a solid-fueled booster. The contract 
addresses the key risks associated with low-cost solid propellant 
boosters, particularly in the areas of composite case design and 
development, propellant development and characterization, nozzle 
design and affordability enhancement, and avionics and controls 
development. 

-- Dynetics Inc. of Huntsville, Ala., which will demonstrate the use 
of modern manufacturing techniques to produce and test several 
primary components of the F-1 rocket engine originally developed for 
the Apollo Program, including an integrated powerpack, the primary 
rotating machinery of the engine. Additionally, the contract will 
demonstrate innovative fabrication techniques for metallic cryogenic 
tanks. 

-- Northrop Grumman Corporation Aerospace Systems of Redondo Beach, 
Calif., which will demonstrate innovative design and manufacturing 
techniques for composite propellant tanks with low fixed costs and 
affordable production rates. Independent time and motion studies will 
compare demonstration affordability data to SLS advanced booster 
development, production and operations. 

Additional contracts may be awarded following successful negotiation 
of other proposals previously received for this NASA Research 
Announcement (NRA), subject to funding availability. 

Designed to be flexible for launching payloads and spacecraft, 
including NASA's Orion spacecraft that will take humans beyond low 
Earth orbit, SLS will enable the agency to meet the Obama 
Administration's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to 
Mars in the 2030s. 

The first flight test of NASA's SLS, an uncrewed mission to lunar 
orbit, which will feature a configuration for a 77-ton lift capacity, 
is scheduled for 2017. As SLS evolves, a two-stage launch vehicle 
configuration will provide a lift capability of 143 tons and include 
the improved, more powerful advanced booster. 

These new contracts are funded under an NRA risk mitigation effort and 
acquisition. There will be a future competition for design, 
development, testing and evaluation for the SLS advanced booster. 
This future competition is planned for 2015 and will be acquired 
through a separate solicitation. The 2015 competition will not be 
limited to awardees announced in this NRA. Successful offerors to 
this NRA are not guaranteed an award for any future advanced booster 
acquisition. 

As NASA endeavors to send humans to a range of new destinations, 
agency initiatives are helping develop a U.S. commercial space 
transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and 
cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space 
Station and low Earth orbit. Ongoing advances made by NASA's 
commercial space partners are paving the way for regular contract 
flights of cargo to the space station and marking progress toward a 
launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next five years. 

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. manages the 
SLS Program for the agency. SLS will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space 
Center in Florida. For information about NASA's Space Launch System, 
visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/sls 
	
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