Another milestone has been reached on the
road to developing a commercial crew transportation system, as Utah based
Alliant Techsystems, Inc. (ATK) and their Liberty Transportation System has
successfully passed a critical review as a partner in NASA’s Commercial Crew
Development Round 2 program.
ATK is an unfunded participant in the program
under an agreement with NASA that allows the space agency and the company to
share technical information during the preliminary design review phase of the
program. Under the agreement ATK must meet five milestones, and the latest
review was the third to be completed.
The Liberty system is derived from the
now-defunct Ares design, and utilizes a derivative of the space shuttle’s solid
rocket booster as a first stage engine along with an engine developed from the
European Ariane 5 launcher as the second stage. ATK is a partner with the
European space developer Astrium. The company anticipates achieving a first
flight in 2013, with a successful crew launch capability in 2015.
According to the website RedOrbit.com:
“This unfunded partnership with ATK on its Liberty systems brings expertise
from around the globe and we are glad to contribute our more than 50 years of
human spaceflight experience to this effort,” said Ed Mango, NASA’s Commercial
Crew Program manager.
During the ISD, Liberty team members from ATK, its European-based partner,
Astrium, and their subcontractors presented the status of Liberty’s system
level requirements, preliminary design and certification process to
representatives from the Commercial Crew Program at Kennedy Space Center in
Florida and other NASA centers.
“With the SAA in place we have been able to work closely with NASA’s
Commercial Program and receive valuable feedback as we develop the Liberty
Transportation System,” said Kent Rominger, ATK vice president and program
manager for Liberty. “We continued to develop Liberty with the goal of
providing the safest, most reliable, cost-effective and capable launch vehicle
for crew transport.”
The current SAA continues through at least March. The two milestones met
earlier include a Requirements Status Briefing and a Technical Interchange
Meeting for the Liberty Transportation System. Two additional milestones are
scheduled to be completed under this SAA.
All of NASA’s industry partners continue to meet their established
milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities that will
ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station, reducing the
amount of time America is without its own system.
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