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Background on Project Constellation
by James Burk
On January 14th, 2024, U.S. President George W. Bush gave an historic speech at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC: "Today I announce a new plan to explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system. We will begin the effort quickly, using existing programs and personnel. We'll make steady progress -- one mission, one voyage, one landing at a time."
Bush announced that the first goal will be to return the Space Shuttle to flight safely, and consistent with the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Once construction of the International Space Station (ISS) is complete, the Space Shuttle will be retired by 2011 to make way for a new spacecraft, the construction of which will transform America into a truly spacefaring nation.
"Our second goal," Bush went on, "is to develop and test a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, by 2009, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2015. The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be capable of ferrying astronauts and scientists to the Space Station after the shuttle is retired. But the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds. This will be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo Command Module."
The program to build the CEV, now christened "Project Constellation" is more than about developing a single new vehicle. NASA will work in parallel on concepts which will launch the new manned spacecraft not only to earth orbit, but also to lunar orbit, to help conduct lunar landings, to build extended duration habitats, and to venture forth on interplanetary destinations beyond (read: Humans to Mars.)
Thus, the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) represents the most significant new research into manned spacecraft since the mid-1960s. It will inherit the legacy and most likely the shape of the Apollo Command Module, and it will benefit from almost 40 years of technological advances.
While it is still early in the development of the CEV, some of the concepts that may be adopted have already started to emerge. Overall, a modular design is being touted in order for new capabilities to be added and to allow future launch vehicles designs to be easily swapped out. Versions of the CEV for earth orbit, lunar orbit and beyond are all being planned and considered.
One thing that is clear from the outset is that a capsule-shaped design is being favored. Other wing-shaped designs have not been ruled out yet, but many observers of the project, including the very astronauts that will ride the vehicle, are strongly in favor of the capsule shape due to its proven flightworthiness during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
Aside from the crew module itself, other modules are being designed to enable extended stays in space. Included in a series of graphic mockups released by Boeing is an inflatable habitat module, which many have already compared to a past NASA effort to develop an inflatable habitat for ISS, and as part of an interplanetary vehicle for future voyages to Mars.
Transhab, or "Transit Habitat", was a $3 million technology development program funded by NASA that was cancelled, once detractors in Congress realized its applicability to future manned Mars hardware. At the time of its cancellation, a moratorium was in place at NASA to prevent any research not specifically tied to the Shuttle or ISS programs. If no other advances are made by the current Space exploration initiative, the single greatest thing it has done, in the opinion of many, is to shatter that moratorium and allow research on human exploration beyond earth orbit to be conducted by NASA.
A Presidential commission will make recommendations on the implementation of the President's new vision for space exploration and what the exact requirements of the CEV will be. The first report of the commission is expected in around four months. The commission is headed by former Joint Strike Fighter program director Pete Aldridge, who was selected due to his experience with managing that large technology-development project.
Aldridge also trained to be a payload specialist on the first west-coast Space Shuttle mission, which was cancelled following the Challenger disaster. He later served as Secretary of the Air Force, President of McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing), and recently retired as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. However, he has been recently criticized by Sen. John McCain due to his position on the board of directors for Lockheed Martin, which McCain feels is a potential conflict of interest. In the past, McCain also criticized Aldridge for his involvement in the Boeing refueling tanker decision, which has been plagued by scandals surrounding the contacts between employees of Boeing and Pentagon officials.
The requirements and supervision of construction for Project Constellation hardware will be the job of NASA's new Exploration Systems office (NASA Code T). It was created the day after Bush's announcement and is headed by Craig E. Steidle, a retired Navy Admiral. Steidle was formerly the Vice Commander, Naval Air Systems Command which is responsible for research, development, and procurement of new naval aeronautical systems. Under his watch, NAVAIR transformed the way it did business during a time when its budgets were decreasing. Steidle streamlined the command, improving processes for communication, responding to problems, and bringing commercial methodologies into use. He also commanded the Navy's largest production, research, and development effort, the F/A-18 Program.
Over this summer more details will emerge on the form and function of the CEV, and more granular timelines will be decided. Whether the first test flight of the CEV will occur in 2009 remains to be seen. But all in all, this is a most exciting time for observers of the space program and those who dream of humans again walking on the Moon and, someday within the lifetimes of most reading this, humans walking on the surface of the Red Planet.
James Burk is an independent space writer and the editor of ProjectConstellation.us and MarsNews.com