Volume 4, Number 2 May/June 1996
NASA's Office of Space Access and Technology is participating in a new effort which will put payload researchers and launch vehicle providers in a closer relationship. Traditionally in government-sponsored space flight research, the government is the selecting agent for the launch vehicle and launch flight while the payload researcher typically has little or no contact with the vehicle provider. The Launch Voucher Program may change that.
The purpose of the Launch Voucher Program is to test a concept where the researcher has a direct role, through "voucher authority" citing a defined launch value paid for by the government, in the selection of a launch flight for his or her payload. The researcher selected for the program solicits flight proposals from the commercial launch industry, evaluates proposals, and makes the selection. In this demonstration program, the government's role as "middleman" is eliminated, allowing a direct relationship to take place between the space flight researcher and the commercial launch provider. The hypothesis is that this direct relationship between researcher and commercial launch vendor will lead to more cost effective flight activity, greater opportunity for market forces to impact commercial expendable launches, and an overall strengthening of the U.S. domestic launch vehicle community through increased opportunities to directly meet the needs of government-sponsored researchers. The Launch Voucher Program had its legal inception through the Commercial Space Competitiveness Act of 1992 with the corresponding language in NASA's Fiscal Year 1993 authorization bill.
The first voucher recipient is the University of Alabama Consortium for Materials Development in Space, one of eleven NASA Centers for the Commercial Development of Space. Through a competitive selection process, the Consortium selected EER Systems and their Starfire launch vehicle for the suborbital launch of their research payloads. The first mission, named Conquest 1, was launched April 3, 1996, at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The mission time frame from launch to impact was approximately 14.4 minutes, with approximately 7 minutes of microgravity opportunity for the research payloads. The payloads were returned to a deintegration facility within 2 hours of launch. Results will be available in the upcoming weeks.
The commercial research payloads for this mission are as follows:
Since the voucher program is designed as a conceptual test, the University of Alabama at Huntsville will provide an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
For more information, contact John Emond at NASA Headquarters. Phone: 202/358-1686, E-mail: jemond@hq.nasa.gov Please mention that you read about it in Innovation.
