NASA Administrator Bridenstine Reassures SLS and Orion Workforce on EM-1 Commercial Launch Alternative ahead of 5th Space Council Meeting

Aspirational concept of Gateway crewed lunar outpost shown by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine as he announces NASA’s 2020 budget request from the Trump Administration to NASA employees, contractors and the media at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 11, 2019.  Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Ken Kremer  --SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –25 March 2019

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL –  An update on the startling proposal by NASA Jim Bridenstine to consider launching the Orion Crew Capsule’s 1^st lunar test flight in mid-2020 on commercial launch vehicles - as a sudden late in the game alternative to using the mammoth but much delayed Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket currently under development by the agency - could come as early as Tuesday March 26 at the next meeting of the National Space Council; chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.

During congressional testimony at the US Senate on March 13 – and just 2 days after announcing NASA’s FY 2020 budget Bridenstine said NASA is actively investigating purchasing two heavy lift ‘commercial launch vehicles’ to match the lifting capability required for an ‘Orion to the Moon’ mission as a replacement for what would be the first SLS rocket launch.

The goal is to still accomplish the launch sometime before the end of 2020, in a race against time to keep the agency on track for a human return to the Moon for the first time since the last Apollo Moon landing in 1972.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is scheduled to speak and address his Orion commercial launch vehicle proposal at the 5^th meeting of the National Space Council taking place Tuesday, March 26 convening at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 

The meeting will focus on the Trump Administration’s plans to send humans to the Moon, Mars and beyond starting in the next decade. 

You can watch and listen live to all the details at NASA Television the agency’s website as presented at the 5^th meeting of the National Space Council  starting at 1 p.m. EDT Tuesday, March 26. 

Vice President Mike Pence addresses a meeting of the National Space Council in the high bay of the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on Feb. 21, 2018. Chaired by the Vice President, the council heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space and national security space industry representatives, backdropped by the NASA Orion, Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Dragon crew vehicles.  Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

Bridenstine announced the commercial launch alternative proposal after learning that SLS development was again way behind schedule and unable to meet the mid 2020 launch target date for the 1^st integrated flight of SLS and Orion on the uncrewed Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) on a three week journey around the Moon and back.

“Yesterday, I was asked by Congress about the schedule slip of the Space Launch System and plans to get NASA back on track,” Bridenstine said in a NASA blog statement on March 14. 

“I mentioned that we are exploring the possibility of launching Orion and the European Service Module to low-Earth orbit on an existing heavy-lift rocket, then using a boost from another existing vehicle for Trans Lunar Injection. Our goal would be to test Orion in lunar orbit in 2020 and free up the first SLS for the launch of habitation or other hardware in 2021.”

NASA officials at HQ and field centers like KSC, JSC, Michoud, Marshall and more have been intensively studying options during overtime over the past two weeks. 

We are studying this approach to accelerate our lunar efforts. The review will take no longer than two weeks and the results will be made available,” Bridenstine elaborated.

Presumably we hear the initial study results at the March 26 space council meeting.

Orion EM-1 Crew Module under construction at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida by prime contractor Lockheed Martin.  Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Bridenstine is rightly concerned that political support from the President and Congress could wane with further delays to the maiden launch of SLS under development by NASA with Boeing serving as the Prime Contractor.

The Orion crew module and European Service Module stack is currently on target to launch in mid-2020.

Manufacture of the SLS megarocket is the holdup to an on time launch next year. 

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announces NASA’s 2020 budget request from the Trump Administration to NASA employees and the media at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 11, 2019.  Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Its important to note that Bridenstine is not abandoning SLS – not yet anyways. In fact he is proposing an exciting alternative to Orion EM-1 for the SLS-1 launch that would involve launching a component of the Lunar Gateway – such as a habitation module.

If the SLS-1 payload is switched to the Gateway Habitation module, then the 1^st crewed Orion on the SLS-2/EM-2 mission could dock there as soon as 2022. 

Aspirational concept of Gateway crewed lunar outpost shown by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine as he announces NASA’s 2020 budget request from the Trump Administration to NASA employees and the media at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 11, 2019.  Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

On March 13, Bridenstine outlined the alternative to SLS option further in response to a question from Senator Wicker- which is likely to involve private rockets from both SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA). 

The commercial rockets likely would be the SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch the combined Orion Crew and Service Modules. The ULA Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V are potential candidates to launch the ICPS upper stage required to propel Orion to the Moon - plus a docking adapter. 

Thereafter they have to dock by an as yet unknown method. A new docking adapter would have to be designed, developed and built.

Or perhaps some existing hardware sitting idly by in the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) could be repurposed. Node 4 and three shuttle docking collars are potentially available if feasible. 

The ULA Delta IV Heavy commercial rocket was already used to launch the very first Orion Crew Capsule on the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission back in Dec. 2014. But the Delta IV Heavy rocket is not powerful enough to launch the heavy weight of the Orion Crew capsule combined with a fully outfitted European Service Module (ESM).

Here is the full statement from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine:

Yesterday, I was asked by Congress about the schedule slip of the Space Launch System and plans to get NASA back on track. I mentioned that we are exploring the possibility of launching Orion and the European Service Module to low-Earth orbit on an existing heavy-lift rocket, then using a boost from another existing vehicle for Trans Lunar Injection. Our goal would be to test Orion in lunar orbit in 2020 and free up the first SLS for the launch of habitation or other hardware in 2021. This would get us back on schedule for a crewed lunar orbital mission in 2022 with the added bonus of a lunar destination for our astronauts.

We are studying this approach to accelerate our lunar efforts. The review will take no longer than two weeks and the results will be made available. Please know that NASA is committed to building and flying the SLS for the following reasons:

1.     Launching two heavy-lift rockets to get Orion to the Moon is not optimum or sustainable.

2.     Docking crewed vehicles in Earth orbit to get to the Moon adds complexity and risk that is undesirable.

3.     SLS mitigates these challenges and allows crew and payloads to get to the Moon, and eventually to Mars, safer and more efficiently than any temporary solution used to get back on track.

I believe in the strength of our workforce and our ability to utilize every tool available to achieve our objectives. Our goal is to get to the Moon sustainably and on to Mars. With your focused efforts, and unmatched talent, the possibility of achieving this objective is real.

Ad astra,

Jim Bridenstine

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Dr. Kremer is a research scientist and journalist based in the KSC area, active in outreach and interviewed regularly on TV and radio about space topics.
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