NASA officials told the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) that early plans for testing the Orion spacecraft and astronaut crews in cis-lunar space include a “shakedown” cruise where a crew would remain in lunar orbit for a year before an attempt is made to send people all the way to Mars.  NAC expressed concern that NASA is not ready to convince a new presidential administration that it is ready to send people to Mars in the 2030s as NASA currently proclaims.

During its December 1-3, 2015 meeting at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, NAC members received briefings from NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Bill Gerstenmaier and International Space Station (ISS) Program Director Sam Scimemi about preliminary plans for NASA’s human spaceflight program especially in the 2020s.  Those include NASA’s plans for transitioning off of the ISS in low Earth orbit (LEO) and Exploration Mission (EM) flights of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft beyond LEO. The first SLS/Orion mission, EM-1, is expected in 2018, but will not carry a crew.  NASA recently officially stated that the first flight with a crew, EM-2, will come in 2023, although it says it is still working to an internal deadline of 2021, the prior estimate.

Gerstenmaier and his team created a concept for a three-phase program
for the future of human spaceflight:  “Earth Dependent” —  the current 
situation with ISS, which relies on frequent resupply missions from
Earth;  “Proving Ground” — where crews gain experience in cutting ties
with Earth in cis-lunar space (the area between the Earth and the Moon,
including lunar orbit), close enough that they can get home in a few
days rather than months, but not just a few hours as they can from ISS; and “Earth Independent” — where crews can
survive for longer periods of time without continuous resupply from
Earth or real-time communications, such as when they are sent to Mars.

NAC has pressed NASA officials at its quarterly meetings on NASA’s exact plans for achieving the goal of sending people to Mars in the 2030s as directed by President Obama.  Much of that debate has centered on the difference between a “plan” and a “strategy,” with some NAC members insisting that a strategy with at least some deadlines and objectives is needed to build public support.  Gerstenmaier has assiduously declined to get into specifics, arguing that maximum flexibility is needed so the effort can respond to changing political and financial support as the years go by.  He calls it the Evolvable Mars Campaign.

Technology development is fundamental to any effort to send people to Mars and one focus of the NAC meeting was whether NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has the right program with the necessary level of funding to ensure success.   Congress routinely cuts the President’s budget request for STMD, forcing it to pick and choose which technologies to develop.

After reviewing a technology risk/challenges matrix for sending people to Mars developed by STMD and comparing it to likely STMD funding, Bill Ballhaus, chair of NAC’s Technology, Innovation and Engineering (TI&E) committee, reported that his committee does not think NASA is ready to make any commitments about when humans will reach Mars.  Ballhaus is a former NASA center director, Lockheed Martin executive, and President of the Aerospace Corporation.  He said it “probably doesn’t make a lot of sense” to talk about going to Mars now from a technology standpoint.  Instead, he thinks NASA should focus on the Proving Ground missions to generate “urgency” for investing in the technologies needed to get people to Mars.

NAC member Tom Young, also a former NASA center director and Lockheed Martin executive, expressed concern that focusing only on cis-lunar missions in the Proving Ground, rather than the longer term goal of Mars, would be a “death knell.”   Ballhaus replied that his committee’s conclusion was “not the outcome we wanted.”  It wanted a plan from NASA/STMD that would “generate urgency for investing in technology programs,” but that is not what it found.  “This is where we are. We might as well face up to it,” Ballhaus said.

During the three-day discussion, Young also expressed concern that NASA cannot afford to support the International Space Station (ISS) and a human exploration program beyond LEO simultaneously.  

Gerstenmaier emphatically disagreed, asserting he can accomplish EM-2, -3 and -4 while still operating ISS under currently planned NASA budget levels.  “I can do up to EM-4 at today’s budget levels,” he admonished the council.

To make the transition from Proving Ground to Earth Independent, Scimemi outlined NASA’s current thoughts about the cadence of EM missions in the 2020s that would lead up to a year-long “shakedown” cruise in cis-lunar space before anyone embarks on a lengthy trip to Mars and back.  Using today’s chemical propulsion, it takes at least 6 months to reach Mars, another 6 months to return, and a set period of time, which varies, at Mars while the Earth and Mars become properly aligned for the return trip.

The shakedown cruise nominally would take place around 2029, Scimemi said.  Such long duration missions will require a habitation module in addition to the Orion spacecraft and Scimemi revealed that NASA is doing trade studies on whether it is better to launch a single “monolithic” module intact or launch several smaller pieces that would be assembled in orbit.  SLS could launch a 40-50 metric ton (MT) monolithic module on a single launch, or smaller 10 MT pieces when it is being used to launch other payloads, he explained.

Scimemi’s overall presentation was focused on what comes next after the ISS in LEO.   President Obama just signed a law that commits the United States to operating ISS until 2024 (Russia and Canada have agreed to this new schedule; Japan and Europe have not yet), but what happens after that is an open question.  Some ISS advocates argue for operating at least until 2028, the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first modules, but few expect the facility to last beyond that. Scimemi called 2028 the “engineering date” for the end of ISS, but left no room for doubt that ultimately there will be an end.  “Station will have an end date.  Parts will come down in the South Pacific,” he acknowledged.  The key is for NASA and its partners to make “intelligent decisions” about how the transition to the future takes place.

What’s next, then?  Gerstenmaier underscored that NASA is “moving out” of LEO and it is up to the private sector to fund, launch, and operate future LEO infrastructure.  He has been saying in many venues over the past year or more that he does not expect any expensive ISS-like facility, but single purpose stations, like a Dragon or Cygnus capsule or a Bigelow expandable module, to meet needs defined by non-NASA users. He noted at the NAC meeting that NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden is reaching out to the Department of Commerce to figure out how to incentivize the private sector in this area:  “This agency [NASA] is not about economic development.  They are.”

NAC member and former astronaut Ken Bowersox argued that NASA will continue to need access to LEO if for no other reason than to allow astronauts some experience before they sign on to longer duration missions.  Several NAC members were skeptical about the commercial potential, too.  They agreed NASA should encourage the private sector, but not rely on it to build future LEO facilities.

All in all, NAC members seemed uneasy about NASA’s strategy for getting people to Mars and how it is communicating with the public and political stakeholders.  The latter is particularly important, as Young pointed out, with an election less than a year away.  “I think we are ill prepared for the debate the next administration will want,” he warned. “We are on a path that maximizes the probability of losing.  If someone asked me what’s the plan to get to Mars, I’d say there isn’t one.”  He pointed out that one of the major factors that doomed the Constellation program begun under the George W. Bush Administration was that it did not win support by the new Obama Administration in its first budget request, initiating the Augustine Committee review instead.

NAC Chairman Steve Squyres agreed that Young “hit on a critical point” and a technology investment plan, including the shakedown cruise by 2029, is needed before a new administration writes its first budget.  

In the end, NAC agreed on one recommendation and one finding, subject to further editing by Squyres and NAC staff, as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, PlanetIQ announced that it signed a contract with India’s Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), to launch the company’s first two microsatellites in late 2016.  At the same time, the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) is set to discuss Antrix’s plans to compete for U.S. satellite launches.

PlanetIQ is planning a constellation of 18 satellites by 2020 to provide radio occulation (RO) data to feed into numerical weather models on a commercial basis.  This method uses signals from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) to make measurements of temperature and water vapor in the lower parts of the atmosphere.  Added to data from polar-orbiting weather satellites, better forecasts are enabled.   The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is partnered with the U.S. Air Force and Taiwan on COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate), a set of six microsatellites launched in 2006, and is planning COSMIC-2, to obtain such data today.  PlanetIQ says its sensor, Pyxis-RO, “quadruples the data collection capability of existing sensors” because it can track signals from all four GNSS systems in the world — GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, and China’s Beidou.

The first two PlanetIQ microsatellites, which weigh only 10 kilograms each, will fly on an ISRO PSLV rocket in late 2016, the company said in a press release.  It added that 10 more will be launched in 2017, but did not specify what rocket will be used.  Those 12 microsatellites will create an initial constellation, with six more microsatellites to follow.  Terms of the Antrix contract, such as price, were not disclosed.

COMSTAC will discuss Antrix’s plans to move into the U.S. market during a telecon onThursday.  COMSTAC chairman Mike Gold of Bigelow Aerospace told SpacePolicyOnline.com today via email that the issue came before COMSTAC in response to a request from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) at COMSTAC’s October 2015 meeting.  USTR wants feedback from the committee on expansion of domestic access to Indian launch vehicles.  COMSTAC’s consideration is not specifically related to PlanetIQ or any other company’s arrangement, Gold added.

The minutes of the October 2015 COMSTAC meeting say that USTR’s Samuel duPont made a presentation to COMSTAC’s International Space Policy Working Group on Antrix’s plans.  “There is concern around whether Antrix will have an unfair advantage over domestic private sector competition, since it is an Indian governmental entity,” as reported in the minutes.

That COMSTAC working group will meet for the first half of Thursday’s telecon, followed by a meeting of the full COMSTAC, to potentially develop findings and/or recommendations.  They also will discuss whether FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation should engage with the European Space Agency (ESA) about potential commercial involvement in ESA’s lunar village concept.

Weather is not cooperating for the launch of Orbital ATK’s OA-4 cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.  Rain and winds have been the primary factors in the delays.  The next attempt is scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday, December 6, at 4:44:56 pm ET, although the Air Force weather forecast even then is only 40 percent favorable.  Monday is a better weather day, with a 70 percent chance of no weather violations.

After scrubbing on Thursday and Friday, ULA was hoping to launch today.  The launch team was counting down to launch and encountered a couple of technical issues that required extended holds to resolve.  There were five opportunities to launch during a 30-minute launch window between 5:10 and 5:40 pm ET.  By early afternoon, only one of those remained because the extended holds ate into the first parts of the window, and according to CBS News space reporter Bill Harwood (@cbs_spacenews) a collision avoidance period ruled out the last slot.  Only 5:33 pm ET remained and with just a 20 percent probability of acceptable weather, ULA decided to wait another day. 

ULA President Tory Bruno tweeted that crew rest was one of the factors in deciding to wait until tomorrow.  The launch team had been through the countdown on Thursday and Friday, resetting several times within the launch window only to be foiled by weather each time.

Scrub. Saving crew rest for better weather on Sunday and Monday

— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) December 5, 2015

This is the first launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft since the October 2014 launch failure of the company’s own Antares rocket.  Orbital ATK is retrofitting Antares with a different Russian rocket engine and currently plans to resume flights in May 2016.   Until then, it is using ULA’s Atlas V for two Cygnus launches – this one and another in March.

Orbital Sciences Corporation already launched two operational cargo missions to ISS, Orb-1 and Orb-2.  Orb-3 was the failure.  The company merged with ATK earlier this year and this launch is designated Orbital ATK CRS-4 or OA-4 for short.  CRS refers to the Commercial Resupply Services contract through which NASA purchases ISS cargo resupply services from Orbital ATK and SpaceX.

SpaceX’s last cargo mission also was a failure and a firm date for the next SpaceX launch to ISS has not been set, although NASA ISS program manager Kirk Shireman said this week that it will be no earlier than January 8, 2016.

NASA is anxious to get OA-4 up to ISS not only because the supplies are needed, but it is a very busy time there as NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, try to meet a schedule that includes returning three people now on ISS to Earth on December 11, launching and docking a new three-person crew on December 15, undocking and deorbiting a Russian Progress cargo ship on December 18, and launching a new Russian Progress cargo craft on December 21 (it will dock on December 23).  After that, no visiting vehicles can come or go from the ISS because of a “beta angle cutout” from December 24 to January 2 when the Sun’s position relative to ISS does not provide proper lighting conditions for such activities.

The ISS is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and 11 European countries acting through the European Space Agency (ESA).   It is typically occupied by six people rotating on approximately 6-month shifts.   The six men currently aboard the ISS are NASA’s Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russia’s Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko, and Sergei Volkov.   Lindgren, Yui and Kononenko are the three scheduled to return on December 11.   Kelly and Kornienko are on a one-year mission aboard the ISS to test human adaptation to spaceflight in preparation for someday sending crews to Mars.  They are more than half way through their mission, with their return scheduled for March 2016. along with Volkov (who arrived in September).

A panel of space policy experts told the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Thursday that NASA has an important role to play in the future, but one different from its roots.  They believe NASA, and Congress, must embrace a new paradigm where the agency leads commercial and international partnerships, rather than dominating the program.

The panel — Lori Garver, John Logsdon and Charles Miller — covered a broad range of civil space topics, but the focus was human space exploration program, particularly the role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) between NASA and the commercial sector, and international cooperation, especially with China.

Garver is General Manager of the Air Line Pilots Association and was NASA Deputy Administrator from 2009-2013. Logsdon is an eminent space policy historian and Professor Emeritus at George Washington University.  Miller has a long history in entrepreneurial space endeavors and held several positions at NASA in support of commercial space; he is now President of NexGen Space, LLC.

The PPP concept was espoused by Garver when she served at NASA and is exemplified by the commercial cargo and commercial crew programs.  The commercial cargo program was initiated by former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin under the George W. Bush Administration.   Commercial crew was a concept at that time, but the Obama Administration took the idea and ran with it.

Garver, Logsdon and Miller see those PPPs as harbingers of a new era of space exploration featuring a much greater role for innovative “new space” companies.  They view Congress and entrenched NASA-industry interests as obstacles that, for example, led to the requirement for NASA to build the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule using “old space” government procurement methods.

Garver recounted the plan the Obama Administration put forward in the FY2011 budget request, released in February 2010.  She is widely viewed as a primary architect of that plan.

The Obama plan called for cancelling the Bush Administration’s Constellation program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.   Instead, the NASA budget would get a $6 billion increase over 5 years to facilitate the development of commercial crew systems to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), with another $3 billion invested in “game changing” rocket technologies to enable human exploration beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).  The U.S. commitment to the ISS was extended for 5 more years (to 2020, later extended again to 2024).  No destination or timetable for human exploration beyond ISS was included, since investment in new technologies was needed before such decisions were made.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress were furious.  They had passed NASA Authorization Acts in 2005 and 2008 under Republican- and Democratic-led Congresses, respectively, endorsing the Constellation program and given little or no forewarning of the dramatic shift the President was about to propose.   Consequently, Obama was forced into a position of making a speech at Kennedy Space Center two and a half months later (April 15, 2010) setting a destination and timetable – send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 – though it did little to ameliorate the situation.

Those factors in Congress’s reaction to the Obama plan were not mentioned at the CFR event.   Instead, after Garver outlined her efforts at NASA to expand the commercial role, Logsdon said “One thing that’s holding us back is the U.S. Congress… full stop.”

The complaint was that Members of Congress often focus on the needs of their constituents and the jobs in their States and districts created by government programs.  In addition, traditional industry contractors and many inside NASA resist change.  Logsdon called it a “space industrial congressional bureaucratic classic triangle that still has a lot of power over the civil program.”

Garver went so far as to say the human spaceflight program “has become largely a jobs program.” She compared the NASA of today to what it was in the early days of the Space Age: “NASA was the very symbol of capitalist ideals … and now what we’re working with is more of a socialist … plan for space exploration, which is just anathema to what this country should be doing.”

Miller added that if the focus is only on making sure the jobs are “in your district,” human space exploration can only be accomplished by adding $5-10 billion to NASA’s budget.  Alternatively, “you can let go of control” and still have the same number of jobs by allowing “dynamic innovation” by the commercial sector.  He argued that even though three attempts to provide enough NASA funding to pursue human exploration of Mars failed (during the Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations), some people are still “grasping” for a “central plan … controlling all the strings.”

While the tone of many of the comments could be construed as negative towards NASA and the government in general, Garver stressed that it is not an either/or situation, government or commercial.  The two must work together:  “we’re not in a race, in a lane in a swimming pool that everybody is racing against each other with our own industry.  We’re in maybe a cycling race, where we should be running point in the government with others drafting behind us, and if someone comes alongside because they can pass us because they found a better way, we don’t get out our tire pump and stick them in the spokes. You know, we take the next hill that will help them go even farther.”

Miller echoed that sentiment:  “We can open space using a partnership between the best of government and the best of private industry.”

Logsdon said he is asked whether NASA is even needed any more and the answer is yes, because the government must take the risks that the private sector will not.

As for international partnerships, in addition to endorsing cooperation with NASA’s traditional partners, all three supported cooperation with China.  Logsdon believes China should be made part of the ISS program in the not too distant future.   Garver noted that space cooperation can be used as either a carrot or a stick and believes it should be used as a carrot with China to find a way to “work together peacefully.”  Garver also asserted, however, that China “basically purchased their space program from Russia,” and is not “innovating like we are, but they will get there, and their interest … in going to the Moon will likely inspire us to go back.”

Logsdon and Miller endorsed a human return to the lunar surface.   Logsdon called the Moon “an offshore island” and “I think we should stop at the Moon on the way out” to Mars.

Miller argued that landing on the Moon is a top priority for NASA’s traditional international partners and should involve commercial partnerships, too.  “We could have a strategy to go back to the Moon today that would fit within our budget and establish a permanent base there.  … It would send a great message around the world.”   He led a recently published study for NASA that concluded “we could return humans to the Moon using commercial partnerships by the end of the second term of the next President, and do it within NASA’s existing budget.”

It was the Obama Administration that terminated U.S. plans to return astronauts to the Moon, however.  Garver asserted that it did so only because there was not enough money in the budget to pay for a lunar lander and it was a “budget reality, not a ‘we’ll never go to the Moon again’ policy.”

The President’s words in 2010, though, conveyed exactly that finality: “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned.  But I just have to say pretty bluntly here:  We’ve been there before. … There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do.”

Garver argued that NASA now is more interested in Mars than the Moon partially because it needs to justify building the SLS.  She has made no secret of her disdain for the SLS since leaving NASA.  She supports the development of in-space fuel depots instead that would obviate the need for very large rockets.

Although she left no doubt that she sees the need for a dramatic change in how NASA approaches the future, Garver also said that NASA is “doing a lot of amazing things for the nation and the world” and there is “a lot of political support for that.”