James Dean

FLORIDA TODAY

Negotiations that NASA announced Thursday could lead to launches of a new commercial rocket from Kennedy Space Center within a few years.

The Orbital ATK rocket is still in the concept phase as a potential competitor to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance vehicles, and might not secure the funding needed to complete development.

But with an eye toward a possible first launch as soon as 2019, Orbital ATK is discussing with NASA the possibility of stacking the rocket on a former shuttle launch platform inside a vacant Vehicle Assembly Building high bay where shuttles were assembled over three decades.

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Those facilities would position the rocket to launch from KSC’s pad 39B, which will be available between flights of NASA exploration missions that are expected no more than once a year.

Any additional launches from that pad would be a major victory in KSC’s effort to transform into a “multi-user spaceport,” making commercial use of facilities now limited to NASA missions.

“We are now a true multi-user spaceport supporting a variety of different partners successfully,” KSC Director Bob Cabana said in a press release. “We look forward to working with Orbital ATK in the future to help expand the capabilities of this unique, historic asset.”

Scott Lehr, president of Orbital ATK’s Flight Systems Group, said the company was “excited about the possibility of utilizing KSC facilities” for a future rocket.

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NASA selected Orbital ATK for negotiations after last summer requesting proposals from private companies interested in using the Vehicle Assembly Building's High Bay 2 and several mobile launch platforms. NASA would not say how many responses it received.

Pairing a solid-fueled booster with a liquid-fueled upper stage provided by Blue Origin, Orbital ATK’s proposed rocket aims to win Air Force certification to launch national security missions for which only ULA and SpaceX are now eligible to compete.

Orbital ATK says the large rocket would not displace the company’s smaller Antares rocket launched from Wallops Island, Virginia.

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The Air Force earlier this year awarded Orbital ATK $47 million to study its new rocket concept as part of a broader program developing domestic alternatives to the Russian RD-180 engine flown by ULA’s Atlas V rocket, which launches most U.S. military missions.

SpaceX, ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne also won contracts to study new propulsion systems.

Though not fully defined, Orbital ATK’s concept echoes the Liberty rocket that ATK — prior to its 2014 merger with Orbital Sciences — proposed for launches of International Space Station cargo and crews.

Liberty envisioned a booster comprised of space shuttle solid rocket segments designed to fit on the same KSC launch platforms and pad that Orbital ATK is again considering using. Liberty’s development stalled when NASA eliminated it from a competition to launch ISS crews commercially.

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Orbital ATK’s new rocket would be stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building’s cavernous High Bay 2, which has an internal height of 452 feet and more than 27,000 square feet of floor space. Across an aisle in High Bay 3, NASA will assemble its Space Launch System exploration rocket, or SLS, whose first version will feature twin Orbital ATK solid boosters.

The SLS is targeting a late 2018 launch from pad 39B of an unmanned Orion capsule, followed by a first launch of astronauts in 2023.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.

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