NASA and the Private Sector - Page 92

The launch vehicle Orbital ATK wants to face off against SpaceX and United Launch Alliance for lucrative U.S. military contracts would be made of two internally-built solid rocket motors and an upper stage engine supplied by Blue Origin, the entrepreneurial space firm led by Jeff Bezos, an Orbital ATK official said this week.

The new rocket, dubbed the Next-Generation Launcher for now, would offer the U.S. Air Force a third option to launch the military’s communications, navigation, early warning and intelligence-gathering satellites.

“The intention is that this will be a new family of launchers developed and qualified as a public-private partnership with joint Air Force and industry investment, and available for satellite launches as early as 2020,” said John Steinmeyer, director of strategy and business development for Orbital ATK’s launch vehicle division.

Only SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and ULA’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 launchers are currently certified to fly the Defense Department’s most sensitive and costly payloads.

But ULA is retiring the base, medium-lift version of the Delta 4 around 2018, and a new Vulcan rocket with U.S.-built main engines is scheduled to debut in 2019, eventually replacing the Atlas 5 in the early 2020s.

At that time, ULA’s Vulcan rocket and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles will likely share the military’s space launch load. The Pentagon requires two independent rocket families to ensure its satellites have a ride to space if one booster is unavailable.

Steinmeyer said Orbital ATK will only go forward with its new rocket development if assured of Air Force funding support, but he said the company’s launcher design has “moderate” development costs.