In a news conference
Monday, NASA managers discussed how the agency will be adjusting the
budget, schedule and technical performance milestones for its Constellation
Program to ensure the first crewed flight of the Ares I rocket and Orion
crew capsule in March 2015.
The Constellation Program is developing the spacecraft and systems,
including the Ares I and Ares V rockets, the Orion crew exploration
vehicle, and the Altair lunar lander, that will take astronauts to the
International Space Station after the retirement of the space shuttle, and
eventually return humans to the moon.
"Since the program's inception, NASA has been working an aggressive
plan to achieve flight capability before our March 2015 target," said Rick
Gilbrech, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission
Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We are still confident the
Constellation Program will make its first flight to the International Space
Station on or before that date. Our new path forward better aligns our
project schedules with our existing funds to ensure we can address the
unplanned challenges that always arise when developing a complex flight
system."
NASA will retire the space shuttles in 2010 and had established a goal
of achieving flight capability for the Constellation Program before 2015 to
narrow the gap in America's human spaceflight capability. As such, NASA
aligned Constellation contracts and internal milestones against a date much
earlier than March 2015 to incentivize an earlier flight capability.
As part of an annual budget process that evaluates the program's
budget, schedule and technical performance milestones, NASA will be working
with its contractors to discuss how program plans and internal milestones
should be adjusted -- a process that will take several months and require
contract modifications and associated milestone realignments. Such
adjustments are not unusual for a complex development program as work
matures and schedules and resources are aligned.
Source: NASA
Digg
Reddit
Slashdot