Commercial Crew Program Introduces CCiCap Initiative

Aerospace companies bidding for NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) development dollars will be expected to present the agency with a viable spacecraft and rocket combination along with blueprints for a mission control center and ground operations. "We don't want a sales pitch, we don't want an advertisement," said Ed Mango, CCP program manager, during a preproposal conference on Feb. 14. "We want to know how they are technically going to make this happen."

Mango and his team are anticipating a bright next phase of development as the agency prepares to award funding for fully integrated crew transportation systems in the summer of 2012. The awards are expected to lead to activities engineers dream about, such as drop tests, engine test fires, pad abort tests and demonstration flights.

"For the first time, we are asking for the full-up, end-to-end integrated system," said Phil McAlister, NASA's director of Commercial Spaceflight Development.The conference was a follow-on to an agency Announcement for Proposals (AFP) issued Feb. 7 that requested aerospace companies submit their plans for the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative by March 23. The conference was held to explain details of the AFP and answer questions from industry. More than 50 industry partners and stakeholders from 25 companies attended to ask NASA what it would be looking for in terms of milestones, funding, schedules, strategies, safety cultures, business modules and eventual flight certification standards.

Launch Aborts Challenge Rocket Engineers

While companies design and perfect spacecraft and rockets to take people into space safely, teams of NASA engineers are deciphering what needs to happen if a launch goes wrong. In other words, what kind of ejection system will astronauts need to survive?

"We're trying to give the crew that last option for when things go bad," said Brent Jett, deputy director of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, or CCP, and four-time space shuttle astronaut. Keep in mind that the system needs to work at all points during ascent, from the launch pad where the air is thick and the spacecraft is not moving at all, to more than 100 miles above Earth, where there is no discernable air and the spacecraft and crew are speeding along at 17,500 mph, or about 5 miles a second.

Also, consider that because rockets can malfunction and even explode within a second of the first problem, the ejection system needs to be able to spot a problem and get the spacecraft out of danger before it's too late. "Basically, you're separating from the rocket with a smaller rocket and it's a pretty extreme environment to put the crew into," said Chris Gerace, deputy chief of CCP's Systems Engineering and Requirements Office.

SpaceX Test Fires Engine Prototype for Astronaut Escape System

One of NASA's industry partners, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), completed a full-duration, full-thrust firing of its new SuperDraco engine prototype at the company’s Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas. The firing was in preparation for the ninth milestone to be completed under SpaceX's funded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

“SpaceX and all our industry partners are being extremely innovative in their approaches to developing commercial transportation capabilities,” said Commercial Crew Program Manager Ed Mango. “We are happy that our investment in SpaceX was met with success in the firing of its new engine.”

Nine months after CCP awarded SpaceX $75 million to design and test its Dragon spacecraft with a launch abort system, the company test fired its SuperDraco development engine to demonstrate its capabilities of keeping an astronaut crew safe during launch and ascent. The engine produced full thrust within approximately 100 milliseconds of the ignition command. It also fired for 5 seconds, which is the same amount of time the engines would burn during an emergency abort.