Proposed Orbital ATK rocket takes next step toward KSC launches

An agreement with the Air Force is the latest step in Orbital ATK’s effort to ready a new rocket for launch from Kennedy Space Center by 2021.

The agreement formalizes a plan that could lead to the Air Force certifying the company’s proposed Next Generation Launch system, or NGL, to fly national security missions.

“It’s an important milestone for us moving forward with this program,” said Mike Laidley, the program manager at Orbital ATK, which is in the process of being acquired by Northrop Grumman.

The certification plan envisions two launches in 2021 by the intermediate version of the NGL rocket from KSC’s pad 39B, which NASA would share with its own deep space exploration rocket, the Space Launch System.

Two flights of a heavy-lift version would follow in 2024, from KSC or possibly California.

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The NGL is one of several vehicles competing to win a new round of Air Force launch contracts.

The service this summer is expected to award initial agreements to three companies to continue developing prototypes of new or upgraded rockets.

Two of the three will be selected as soon as 2019 for launches beginning in 2022.

That will fulfill the Air Force's goal to end reliance on Russian rocket engines that now power missions flown by United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V. The Air Force already has funded work on new propulsion systems by Orbital ATK, ULA, SpaceX and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Orbital ATK is attempting to unseat incumbents ULA or SpaceX, the only companies certified to launch national security missions such as Global Positioning System, communications and missile warning satellites.

The NGL is based on the solid rocket boosters once flown by NASA’s space shuttle, and that will help lift the space agency's 322-foot SLS rocket, which is targeting a first flight in late 2019 or 2020.

Upgrades include composite instead of steel casings for 12-foot-diameter booster segments. A test-firing of the intermediate rocket’s first and second stages is planned in 2019 in Utah.

Orbital ATK says it and the Air Force have jointly invested more than $200 million in the concept so far.

If the NGL advances and ultimately wins Air Force launch contracts, it would broaden KSC’s portfolio as a “multi-user spaceport” supporting more than just NASA missions.

The NGL would be stacked in a Vehicle Assembly Building high bay on a mobile launch platform formerly used by shuttles. NASA’s upgraded crawler-transporter would roll the rocket to pad 39B — as long as an SLS wasn’t there. 

SpaceX launches Falcon rockets from adjacent pad 39A, and Boeing is assembling its CST-100 Starliner crew capsules in a former shuttle hangar at KSC.

While pursuing certification for military missions, Orbital ATK envisions the NGL competing to launch commercial and science spacecraft as well.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FlameTrench.