14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, Denver, Colorado-based corporation Lockheed Martin Space Systems, the main contractor to build NASA's Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, sent out a letter to its subcontractors, announcing them that funding for their efforts will cease on April 30. According to a letter Orbital Sciences Corporation of Virginia sent to Minneapolis-based Alliant TechSystems (ATK), no additional funds will be provided this fiscal year, though this does not constitute an end to the contract between the two parties, Space reports.
Under a legal provision, NASA cannot make any changes to its Project Constellation without the express provision of Congress. This also includes starting and ending contracts, and concluding business agreements between the American space agency and these private companies would be a violation of the law. The notice of funding termination comes just a few days ahead of the first planned test run of the Orion Launch Abort System, which was scheduled to take place May 6. ATK was building an astronaut escape system for the capsule.
“Orbital Sciences Corporation is in receipt of a notice of funding limitations from our customer, Lockheed Martin, that no additional funds are forthcoming for the remainder of GFY 2010. As ATK is aware, the current run-out date is April 30, 2010,” told ATK in an April 20 letter Gregory Pappas, who is the subcontracts manager at OSC. This “does not constitute a Contract termination,” the official added in the letter. This is a loophole found in the laws Congress passed this December, to ensure the space agency and the US president do not shut down Constellation on their own.
Barack Obama proposed shutting down the entire Project earlier this year, when he said that Orion, the ARES I rocket, and the ARES V heavy-lift delivery system needed to be scrapped in order to give private companies more access to space. The measure was heavily criticized in Congress and elsewhere, considering that it leaves thousands of the world's most highly-trained engineers out of a job, and out of NASA. Additionally, the country will remain heavily reliant on Russian spacecrafts for access to orbit, and will lose its role as a leader in space. Several initiatives to stop the 2011 budget proposal are currently underway in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.