Industry Day Event Held In Huntsville, AL, Thursday
NASA leaders met Thursday to discuss acquisition plans for the
agency’s new SLS heavy-lift rocket with hundreds of
representatives of aerospace industry companies, small businesses
and independent entrepreneurs. The Industry Day event, hosted by
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, provided
industry representatives with an overview of the SLS Program and
defined its near-term business requirements, including details of
NASA's acquisition strategy for procurement of critical hardware,
systems and vehicle elements. Marshall is leading design and
development of the Space Launch System for NASA.
"This is a milestone moment for NASA, for our industry partners
and for our economy," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver told
the group. "We at NASA have worked hard the past year to analyze
and select our Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and space launch systems
designs."
"We're proud to be where we are today," said Marshall Center
Director Robert Lightfoot. "We've done the due diligence necessary
to get to this point -- thousands of configuration trades and
studies -- and now it's time for us to start working on the
hardware."
The event was held during Marshall’s quarterly Small
Business Alliance Meeting at the Davidson Center for Space
Exploration, part of Huntsville's U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
NASA announced plans for the development of the SLS in September.
It will carry NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, cargo,
equipment and science experiments to space -- providing a safe,
affordable and sustainable means of reaching the moon, asteroids
and other destinations in the solar system.
The planned vehicle will be the most powerful ever developed,
evolving to a 130-metric-ton rocket built around a core stage,
which will share common design, supplier base, avionics and
advanced manufacturing techniques with the upper stage. It will use
a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propulsion system, relying on
the space shuttle's RS-25 engine for the core stage and the J-2X
engine for the upper stage. Dual, five-segment solid rocket
boosters mounted to the sides of the tank will provide additional
power. The design of the dual boosters on later flights will be
determined through competition based on cost, performance and
interface requirements.
The Space Launch System will take advantage of proven hardware
and cutting-edge tooling and manufacturing technologies to
significantly reduce development and operations costs. This
strategy will help NASA maintain the development pace necessary to
launch the first, full-scale test flight by late 2017.
(Images Courtesy NASA)