Bigelow Space Station is Go if NASA Commercial Crew Funding Comes Through

A Boeing CST-100 crew module docks at Bigelow Aerospace's Sundancer space station. (Credit: Boeing)

Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace will go forward with the development of a private space station and transport system if they can obtain enough money from NASA to complete the crew vehicle, officials said on Monday at the Farnsborough Airshow.

Flight Global reports:

Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace are teaming up to build a commercial space station system, with a 2015 target for a fully operational station in low Earth orbit (LEO), the companies announced on the first day of the show.

The aggressive schedule – with assembly in 2014 and testing to include an uncrewed trip to the station – is contingent upon the US Congress coming through with funding for NASA’s proposed Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) Space Act Agreement programme this fall.

“We need the funding. The money that NASA has proposed closes the business case. Without that, we would have a difficult time,” says Brewster Shaw, former astronaut and vice-president and general manager of Boeing’s space exploration division.

Bigelow has developed Sundancer inflatable modules to serve as a space station. The Las Vegas company is working with Boeing to develop a 7-person crew vehicle called the CST-100, which will be similar to the Apollo capsule. NASA has provided the project with $18 million in funding earlier this year, but much more is needed.

The capsule is being designed to fly aboard multiple launch vehicle, including United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V and Delta IV boosters. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The CST-100 could also launch on the Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX, which is marketing its own Dragon capsule to carry astronauts into orbit.

One key element for both the CST-100 and Dragon is an escape system. Traditionally, human space vehicles have used a “pull” system that includes an escape tower on top of the capsule that would ignite if there were problems with the booster. The tower is jettisoned after the vehicle reaches a safe altitude.

However, the CST-100 would feature a “push” system, with a rocket system below the vehicle. There are two advantages to this approach. It provides more fuel for maneuvering on orbit as opposed to the throw-away escape tower.

Second, it eliminates the need for significant changes to the existing Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, according to Boeing’s Roger Krone.

In Krone’s opinion, it should be possible to get a CST-100 launch stack approved for manned flight without an elaborate “man-rated” redesign of the Delta or Atlas machinery, as the abort system will ensure astronauts’ survival in the event of any problem.

This approach would allow ULA to roll the same launchers off its assembly lines that it sells to the Air Force for satellites delivery. Unit costs would come down for both ULA and the Air Force without any significant design changes that would lessen the reliability of the two boosters, which have been perfect in all their flights.

In an interview with Defense News in May, USAF Deputy Undersecretary For Space Programs Gary Payton said this “white tail” approach could work fine:

A. If there are increases to the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) annual launch rate, that’s a good sign. Right now, we have a plan for United Launch Alliance to do eight launches a year, notionally five for the Air Force, two for the National Reconnaissance Office and one for NASA. So if we can increase that one for NASA up to two or three per year, that would be great for everybody, because we would be buying more rocket engines per year and flying more rockets per year, and that helps with the proficiency of the launch crews.

If some commercial company or companies want to use the EELV for human access to the space station, we’d have to look very closely at changes to the rockets’ design in order to accommodate people. And any of those changes we’d have to manage very closely so that they don’t ripple in to the Air Force design, which has been very successful with 31 successes out of 31 attempts. My view is, if it works, don’t fix it.

One way to safely use these rockets is to build “white tail” EELVs that are the same for everybody. After you assemble them, then you add different things to allow crew inside the launch vehicle. We’d be building more rockets per year, and the critical parts are the same for all users. What I don’t want to see is two separate assembly lines, one that is unique to NASA and another unique for the Air Force and intelligence community. That doesn’t help anybody because their RS-68 engine is different from our RS-68 engine, and their RL-10 engine is different from our RL-10 engine.

Any progress, of course, is contingent upon NASA providing cash to the companies under the CCDEV program, which is now the subject of negotiations between the White House and Congress. The Obama Administration has proposed significant more spending at a faster rate than Congress has been willing to support.

The Register reports that having multiple destinations to which to fly the CST-100 is crucial to the effort:

According to Boeing, however, NASA CCDev ISS work on its own wouldn’t merit the company developing a new people-carrying launcher.

“There needs to be more than one place to go,” says Boeing’s Roger Krone. “This is not viable if the only place is ISS.”

If the Bigelow-Boeing joint venture is a success, it would open up low-Earth orbit to a broad variety of parties by making more orbital space available and significantly reducing prices.

Renting time on the first station would cost sovereign and commercial customers about $95m for a year, plus a per-astronaut cost of $24.9m, Bigelow says – a relative bargain compared with NASA’s cost of $56m to send each astronauts to the International Space Station.

Bigelow also says he has already secured permission from the US State Department to run the project without any International Traffic in Arms Regulations concerns. “It’s not a transfer of technology,” Bigelow says, likening commercial space travel to commercial air travel.

“We believe space commerce will be a reality,” Shaw says.

Big plans. We’ll see if Congress and the Administration can find enough money to make them a reality.