WASHINGTON – NASA has gone a step further in its efforts to establish a long-term production line for the Space Launch System, though it remains uncertain what, if any, cost savings those contracts will provide.
NASA announced on June 29 that it signed a charter contract with Northrop Grumman for solid rocket thrusters used by the SLS. The contract, valued at $ 49.5 million, will allow the company to begin purchasing long-term items needed for reinforcements to be used on SLS flights four through nine. The company is already under contract for reinforcements for the SLS Artemis 1, 2 and 3 missions until 2024.
The charter contract serves as a precursor to a long-term contract for the drivers of those six future SLS missions. That contract, which NASA said it hopes to end next year, will run until the end of 2030.
“This initial step ensures that NASA can build the necessary propellers for future Space Launch System rockets that will be required for Artemis missions to explore the moon,” said John Honeycutt, manager of NASA’s SLS program, in a statement. from the agency. “The charter contract allows us to purchase long lead materials in time to make reinforcements for the fourth flight.”
The SLS uses two five-segment solid rocket thrusters based on the four-segment thrusters flown on shuttle missions. Northrop Grumman recently shipped the ten segments needed for reinforcements on the Artemis 1 mission from a company storage facility in Utah to the Kennedy Space Center for stacking and integration.
“We are ready to process and stack the reinforcements for the Artemis 1 mission, and we are making great progress producing reinforcements for the Artemis 2 and 3 missions,” said Bruce Tiller, manager of the NASA SLS reinforcement office on the Marshall Space Flight. . Center said in the statement.
The charter contract is the latest in a series of steps by NASA to establish long-term production for a rocket that has not yet been launched for the first time. In October 2019, NASA announced that it had begun negotiations with Boeing on a contract for up to 10 central stages of the rocket. In May, NASA awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract to produce 18 RS-25 engines used in that central stage, a deal worth $ 1.79 billion.
NASA has argued that long-term contracts will reduce the costs of individual SLS vehicles. “If you buy an SLS rocket, the price is really high. If you buy two, the price drops significantly, and if you buy all three it keeps going down, ”said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at a December 2019 event at the Michoud Assembly Center marking the completion of the central stage of SLS for Artemis 1.
The exact size of that cost reduction remains unknown. Bridenstine suggested last year that the goal is to cut the price of a single SLS in half. Aerojet Rocketdyne executives said in May that their new RS-25 production contract will reduce the contract duration by 30%, and that the company is studying ways to achieve a 50% reduction compared to the main Space Shuttle Motor.
The last contract announcement did not include an update on when the SLS will finally launch, which was long overdue. Testing of the central SLS stage, including a “Green Run” static fire test, has been slowed by factors beyond NASA’s control, including the coronavirus pandemic that shut down the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for two months and, most recently, a tropical storm that suspended work for about a week.
At a meeting of the advisory committee in May, Tom Whitmeyer, assistant to NASA’s assistant deputy administrator, said the launch of Artemis 1 will take place “at the end of next year.” The 2010 NASA authorization law that ordered NASA to develop the SLS required that it be in service by the end of 2016.
