Can Wallops MARS Compete for COTS-D?

NASA is said to be in the final stages of vetting a review on the feasibility of accelerating the crew transport portion of its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, according to Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Rick Gilbrech as reported Aerospace Daily & Defense Report late last week.

NASA is funding SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to develop cargo capability for the International Space Station (ISS) under COTS, but so far has held off on greenlighting the crew transfer portion of the program, known as “COTS D.” Only SpaceX has been actively working on a COTS D concept, with Orbital focused exclusively on cargo at this point.

Orbital will launch the now-under-development Taurus 2 booster from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport co-located on the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. But to launch human missions from the site will require modifications to the FAA-AST permit and NASA environmental impact studies as well. Virginia lawmakers are being asked to urge NASA to review Wallops Island human-rated launch requirement studies now as other federal lawmakers are seeking to advance the acceleration of COTS D to reduce the expected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the space shuttle’s 2010 retirement and the debut of the Orion in 2015.