Rockwell to Deliver New Shuttle in 1991
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Friday that it has completed negotiations with Rockwell International Corp. for a new space shuttle to replace the Challenger, lost in the January, 1986, launching disaster.
Under the agreement, the new vehicle is scheduled for delivery to the space agency in 45 months, in April, 1991, at a cost estimated at $1.3 billion.
The program will be managed by a Rockwell division in Downey, Calif., where some fabrication will be carried out, but final assembly of the new spaceplane will be done at the company’s Palmdale facility.
Called ‘Major Milestone’
The long-expected announcement was made after months of negotiations, and Richard H. Truly, chief of NASA’s manned space flight program, called it “a major milestone in our return to safe, reliable and effective spaceflight.”
“Those government and contractor people who oversee and construct this spacecraft are setting out on a task which is of the utmost importance to America’s future in space,” the announcement said.
The loss of the Challenger and its seven crew members left the United States with only three orbiters in its shuttle fleet.
In the overhaul of the space program since the tragedy, the Reagan Administration has adopted a policy of launching routine payloads into space with expendable rockets and reserving the shuttle fleet for high-priority national security and scientific missions and for large satellites requiring the spacious shuttle payload bay.
Fabrication Under Way
Much of the fabrication of major structural components for the new spaceplane has already been completed under a program to stockpile spare parts for the fleet. Using these, a new orbiter could have been delivered in substantially less than 45 months, space agency sources said.
With routine payloads to be launched by expendable vehicles, however, the delivery of the new orbiter is not as urgent as it once was.
NASA is now working toward its first post-Challenger shuttle launching in June, 1988. Its next major milestone will occur next month, when it is to carry out its first test-firing of the shuttle system’s redesigned solid rocket booster.
Instead of the two dozen shuttle flights a year, envisioned before the Challenger tragedy, the space agency now plans to build back gradually to a rate of about 14 shuttle launchings a year.
Some congressional space specialists believe that the shuttle flight rate for the foreseeable future is more likely to be in the range of nine to 12 flights a year.
Initially Sought 5 Orbiters
At the outset of the shuttle program, when NASA still hoped that the vehicle would pay its own way by launching satellites for commercial customers, program supporters argued that the United States needed a fleet of five orbiters.
But, after the Challenger accident, the Reagan Administration went through a protracted debate over whether to replace the lost Challenger or to move on toward a new generation of manned space vehicles to eventually replace the shuttle system.
President Reagan opted for another shuttle and gave his approval last August. Congress included $2.1 billion for it in the fiscal 1987 budget.
NASA said more than 100 subcontractors will be involved in the project.
