Lockheed Says It Could Build Orion Cheaper With Less Oversight as Layoffs Loom

NASA's Orion spacecraft

Space News has an update on the Orion spacecraft turned lifeboat:

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. could deliver an Orion-based crew rescue vehicle for the international space station for as little as $4.5 billion if NASA relaxes some of the oversight it normally exercises on manned spaceflight contracts, according to the company’s top executive.

“If I were utterly unconstrained by funding requirements and asked to provide my best estimate of what would be a rational test program, it’s in the range of $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion,” Joanne Maguire, executive vice president of Denver-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems, said in a June 17 interview.

Maguire said hitting that price range would require a “departure” from the agency’s standard supervisory role. “We’re looking at, and really making some suggestions to NASA about how they might streamline this program,” she said. “Part of that is looking at the real value-add of some of the oversight that they were anticipating providing.”

Menawhile, Aviation Week reports that 600 people will lose their jobs as a result of the plan to downscale the Orion vehicle:

Lockheed Martin is trimming its Orion spacecraft workforce by 20% as it works with NASA to redefine the vehicle as a crew rescue capsule for International Space Station crews.

The cuts amount to 300 Lockheed Martin employees and 300 subcontractor personnel. While the company is working to find new positions for the displaced staff within the company, “layoff notices are probably inevitable, and that will happen shortly,” according to Linda Karanian, Lockheed’s Washington-based director of human space flight programs.

Orion, like the U.S. space program as a whole, remains in limbo following the Obama administration’s announcement that it wants to cancel the George W. Bush administration’s Constellation Moon-Mars program in favor of myriad technology development efforts and human missions to alternate destinations such as asteroids.

Lockheed Martin anticipates little difficulty in transitioning Orion from a full-up spacecraft intended for missions beyond low Earth orbit to a crew rescue vehicle. “Our current Orion requirements as a crew exploration vehicle encompass any requirements we foresee that would be imposed … on a lifeboat,” Karanian says, noting that the company is convinced it can provide a vehicle that would involve only “marginal delta cost” to NASA beyond the current program.