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ATK Completes Successful Pathfinder For Its New Launch Vehicle
Salt Lake City UT (SPX) Oct 11, 2006 Alliant Techsystems recently completed a successful on-pad assembly, or pathfinder operation, of an ATK-designed launch vehicle, the ALV. This significant milestone keeps the company on schedule to fly its first mission -- designated ALV X-1 -- in 2007. Next year's ALV X-1 flight is part of ATK's plan to develop a low-cost launch vehicle for the operational responsive space (ORS) market. Possible ORS programs include the delivery of small payloads to low-earth orbit in support of DOD missions, NASA scientific missions, and commercial and university satellite programs. "The completion of our pathfinder operation builds on last year's successful sounding rocket flight test and brings us one step closer to realizing our goal of developing an affordable launch vehicle that supports numerous military, scientific and commercial missions," said Charlie Precourt, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, ATK Launch Systems Group. "By incorporating off-the-shelf components and technologies into the program and minimizing ground support requirements, we believe ATK can offer our customers a reliable and low life-cycle cost launch vehicle." During its inaugural flight, the ALV will carry a hypersonic boundary layer transition experiment (Hy-BoLT) payload sponsored by NASA's Hypersonics Project within the Fundamental Aeronautics Program. A secondary payload consisting of a suborbital aerodynamic re-entry experiment (SOAREX) is being developed by NASA Ames. The inaugural flight of the ALV will be launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, located at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links ATK Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com
Andrews Space Awarded Contract To Study Flexible Thermal Protection Concepts
Seattle WA (SPX) Oct 10, 2006Andrews Space, Inc. (Andrews) announced today that it has been awarded a $600,000 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) to perform a study entitled "Flexible Transpiration Cooled Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) for Inflatable Atmospheric Capture and Entry Systems". These concepts are directly applicable to ballute technologies, which Andrews is in the process of developing. The contract is an extension of the Phase I study Andrews completed in July 2006. |
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