Near-Term Funding On ISS Extension Uncertain

Europe is exploring near-term alternatives to a planned payload return capsule as it struggles to hash out a strategy for operating the International Space Station beyond 2015. The European Space Agency sees the Advanced Recovery Vehicle (ARV) as a first step toward developing a full-fledged unmanned and perhaps manned space transportation capability. ARV would be based on the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) used to resupply the ISS. ESA hoped to obtain a Phase B detailed design go-ahead by year-end, which would permit the agency to substitute the ARV for one or both of the extra two ATVs it would have to provide in return for another five years of station utility and transportation services. However, doubts about the wisdom of moving so quickly with a cargo return capability, especially in Italy, are causing ESA managers to search for alternatives. Italy agrees that “Europe has to master reentry technologies, but its position is it’s too early for ARV,” says Roberto Provera, director of transportation systems and space exploration programs at Thales Alenia Space, which supplies the cargo carrier for the ATV. For one thing, he says, Italian planners doubt the usefulness of embarking on the ARV before feedback is available from Europe’s new atmospheric reentry flight demonstrators—Expert and the Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV). Expert is to be orbited in mid-2011 by a Russian submarine-launched Volna rocket, but negotiations with the Russian space forces have yet to be concluded, Provera says. The IXV is to fly in 2013 on Europe’s new Vega booster, but funding for the launch and flight demonstration also has not been nailed down, he notes (AW&ST July 5, p. 40). Moreover, Provera says, Rome thinks it makes no sense to think about space transportation until European participation in the five-year ISS extension, and funding for that participation, is approved. ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain had hoped to obtain approval for both by year-end, but industry officials say this may not be feasible. To begin with, they note, there’s a move afoot to have ISS running costs assumed by the European Union, which sees space exploration as a key part of its plans to play a major role in space. But clarifying the EU space road map is likely to take one or two years. In addition, there is disagreement between Germany, which foots the biggest part of Europe’s ISS bill, and France, the No. 1 space spender, on how much funding should be approved for the station extension. Bringing the two sides together may involve horse-trading for the booster that will replace the Ariane 5, which could continue up to ESA’s next ministerial summit in 2012 (AW&ST Nov. 1/8, p. 34; Oct. 4, p. 37). Simona di Pippo, ESA’s director of manned spaceflight, says the agency expects to have a resolution on the ISS extension by year-end, boosted by an anticipated statement in support of the ISS at the seventh meeting of the EC-ESA Council late last week. Agency leaders also still hope to have an agreement early next year on funding of ISS operations from 2011 through 2020, including ATV follow-ons, though she admits they might have to settle for an interim funding accord and leave long-term financing until the 2012 summit. Among the proposed ATV follow-ons are a sixth ATV, for which industry says long-lead items must be ordered by early 2011, and a set of improvements, dubbed ATV Enhancement, that would be fitted on vehicles starting with ATV-3, to be launched in 2012. Expected to cost around ¤22 million ($29.5 million), ATV Enhancement would take advantage of shifts in ISS resupply requirements—notably lower fuel and water requirements and less dry cargo mass than had been anticipated—to boost the vehicle’s dry cargo capacity. Dino Brondolo, the ISS program director at TAS, says that by reconfiguring the hold of the cargo carrier to make use of unutilized space, installing lighter secondary structures and racks and fitting a new, lighter-weight meteorite damage protection system (MDPS), engineers expect to shave 300 kg. (661 lb.) from carrier mass and boost dry cargo volume 15%. Switching out a water or fuel tank could save another 840 kg,, adding more mission flexibility. Brondolo notes for instance that ATV-2, which will fly in February, will carry no water. The new racks have already been qualified on the Multipurpose Logistics Module (MPLM) and Nodes 2 and 3, which TAS also supplied. The MDPS is based on analyses done for the Permanent Multipurpose Module, a modified MPLM intended to augment ISS storage capacity, that is to be launched to the stationin mid-December. ESA managers are also working on a more extensive upgrade that, instead of focusing on the ARV, would create a multipurpose architecture capable of supporting a number of different applications. Michael Menking, head of orbital systems and exploration at Astrium, said this upgrade, known as ATV Derivative, would allow the vehicle to accommodate unpressurized as well as pressurized cargo, serve as a space tug or perform any number of other specialized tasks, including cargo return. ESA planners think the ATV Derivative could be ready for initial use by 2017-18. They decline to say how much it would cost, but it would be significantly less than the €1.5 billion or so that would be needed to develop a cargo download capability.