NASA Begins Commercial Partnership With Alliant Techsystems

[NASA News <hqnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sept. 13, 2011

Michael Braukus/J.D. Harrington 
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1979/5241 
michael.j.braukus@xxxxxxxx/j.d.harrington@xxxxxxxx 

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

Trina Patterson 
ATK Aerospace Systems, Salt Lake City 
801-699-0943 
trina.patterson@xxxxxxx 




RELEASE: 11-300

NASA BEGINS COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIP WITH ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) of Salt 
Lake City have agreed to collaborate on the development of the 
company's Liberty Launch System as part of the agency's Commercial 
Crew Development Round 2 activities. 

The unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) through NASA's Commercial Crew 
Program will allow the agency and ATK to review and discuss Liberty 
system requirements; safety and certification plans; computational 
models of rocket stage performance; and avionics architecture 
designs. The agreement outlines key milestones including an Initial 
System Design review, during which ATK will present to NASA officials 
the Liberty systems level requirements, preliminary design, and 
certification process development. 

"This agreement will provide the opportunity to look at the Liberty 
system to understand its design solution and risks, its capabilities 
and how it could be used to fly our NASA crew," said Ed Mango, NASA's 
Commercial Crew Program manager. The program is based at the agency's 
Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

NASA will provide feedback to ATK based on its human spaceflight 
experience for advancing crew transportation system capabilities and 
the agency's draft human certification requirements. 

"With this SAA we believe NASA will benefit from gaining insight into 
the various systems we are developing, and we can benefit from the 
feedback," said Kent Rominger, vice president, strategy and business 
development for ATK Aerospace. "In the end, we hope to offer a 
commercial solution to NASA, the Department of Defense, and other 
commercial human spaceflight programs." 

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



http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial 

	
-end-



To subscribe to the list, send a message to: 
hqnews-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
hqnews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx