NORTHROP-BOEING TEAMED COMPANIES TO COMPETE JOINTLY TO BUILD NASA'S NEXT MANNED SPACESHIP.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Company have finalized an agreement to compete as a team to develop a NASA spacecraft that will take humans into Earth orbit and later to the moon.

Under the agreement, Northrop Grumman will serve as the team's leader and prime contractor for the initial development of the crew exploration vehicle or CEV. Boeing's NASA Systems will serve as the principal subcontractor.

As the spacecraft's capability is expanded to conduct moon missions, the roles will be reversed, with Boeing serving as the prime contractor.

``Basically, this widens the talent base,'' said Chuck Allen, Boeing's vice president for space-exploration systems.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to seek proposals this spring from the aerospace industry for the new spacecraft. Plans call for two teams to be awarded contracts in the summer to build flight-test vehicles that will be flown in 2008.

What role, if any, the Antelope Valley will play in the development of the CEV remains to be seen, but state and local officials are optimistic that testing of various technologies for the effort will be done at Edwards Air Force Base.

Edwards could support testing of new rocket engines and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at NASA could be used for flight tests. There was similar support at Edwards in development of the space shuttle.

The Northrop Grumman-Boeing team will select work locations for the effort before submitting its proposal this spring. Both Northrop and Boeing have operations in Palmdale at Air Force Plant 42.

The partnership brings together two companies with experience in space projects. Boeing has some 40 years of human spaceflight experience, including development of the space shuttle.

The flight-test vehicle to be flown in 2008 could be an atmospheric craft or a full-fledged spacecraft, depending on what the team feels is needed to reduce risk in technology development, Allen said.

NASA will then select one team to build the new spacecraft, with a planned delivery date of 2014.

Initially, the new spacecraft will be used for placing people into orbit around the Earth. Plans call for the spacecraft's capabilities to be expanded over time to include supporting manned moon missions between 2015 and 2020.

The requirements for the spacecraft are still being developed. Planning documents call for a capacity of four astronauts.

While a winged vehicle hasn't been ruled out, early indications are that the program's potential competitors are intensely interested in a space capsule design. Such a design has decades of operational history, dating back to the first manned flights.

A key factor in competition will be in managing risk: protecting the safety of astronauts and people on the ground, as well as reducing the development risks to avoid delays and cost overruns.

``We will bring a program on cost and on schedule,'' Allen said.

For moon missions, the spacecraft will need additional systems to propel it from Earth's orbit to a staging point near the moon. The lunar mission will also require a secondary space system that will allow the crew to travel from the staging area to the moon's surface, sustain the crew on the moon and transport the crew safely back to the staging area.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com