NASA and United Launch Alliance Complete Space Act Agreement

Oct. 15, 2012

Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov

Candrea Thomas
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
candrea.k.thomas@nasa.gov

Jessica Rye/Chris Chavez
United Launch Alliance
321-730-5646 / 303-269-5550
jessica.f.rye@ulalaunch.com / chris.s.chavez@ulalaunch.com

RELEASE: 12-350

NASA AND UNITED LAUNCH ALLIANCE COMPLETE SPACE ACT AGREEMENT

WASHINGTON -- NASA partner United Launch Alliance (ULA) has completed
the fifth and final milestone for its Commercial Crew Development
Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with the agency's Commercial Crew Program.


The Hazard, System Safety and Probabilistic Risk Assessment detailed
how ULA's Atlas V rocket launch system hardware would ensure crew
safety during launch and ascent.

"The ULA team did an outstanding job outlining how it plans to
integrate its launch vehicle with completely different spacecraft
designs," said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager. "We
commend ULA for taking on the challenge of human spaceflight, and we
look forward to learning more about their innovative and cost-saving
solutions as we continue to move forward in developing a crew
transportation capability for America."

During the year-long unfunded partnership, five reviews by technical
experts from NASA and ULA assessed the company's design
implementation plans, detailed system and sub-system analysis,
qualification, certification and flight data.

"This has been a tremendous team effort between NASA, ULA and our
commercial crew partners and we have made a great deal of progress
toward safe, affordable human spaceflight," said George Sowers, ULA's
vice president of human launch services.

As a follow on to CCDev2, NASA recently announced funded partnerships
for the agency's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap)
initiative. Two of the three recipients, The Boeing Company and
Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC), have selected ULA's Atlas V rocket as
their launch vehicle.

"This baseline will be used by both Boeing and SNC as they proceed
into the CCiCap phase, providing them with the confidence that the
flight-proven Atlas V will be ready to safely, reliably and
cost-effectively launch," said Sowers.

With the completion of the CCDev2 milestones, ULA establishes a
technical foundation for potentially certifying its Atlas V rocket
for crewed missions. It also marks the development of the design
criteria for the rocket's emergency detection system, which would
allow crew members to escape if something were to go wrong with
either the launch vehicle or spacecraft. In addition, ULA established
requirements for its dual-engine Centaur configuration and selected
the design approaches it would take for accommodating a spacecraft
and its crew at the company's launch facility in Florida, Space
Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

All of NASA's industry partners, including ULA, continue to meet their
established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation
capabilities.

While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop commercial
spaceflight capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion
spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and
heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human
exploration. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for
crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence
beyond low Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration into
the solar system.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew


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