The Road To Transition

For the first time in a generation, the human space flight community is undertaking the complex process of phasing out one launch vehicle while designing and deploying a new system. But the transition from Shuttle to Constellation is more than a change of flight vehicle. It will involve retooling facilities, re-scoping processes and even reorganizing the team that supports space flight.

United Space Alliance will play an important role in successfully accomplishing the transition, but according to President and Chief Executive Officer Mike McCulley, the road from Shuttle to Constellation will be marked by both challenge and opportunity.

“The first step in transitioning to the exploration programs of the future is the safe and successful completion of the remaining Space Shuttle flights,” he said. “There is a bright future available to us if we are up to the challenge.”

“The Space Shuttle Program’s mission is to fly 16 more flights between June’s launch of STS-117 and Shuttle Mission Complete in September 2010,” said USA’s Shuttle Program Manager Howard DeCastro. “This will be a busy time with more Shuttle flights than NASA flew in the entire Apollo Program. Completion of the International Space Station and one more Hubble servicing mission in 40 months will be a stunning accomplishment and one that will take all of our skill, focus and dedication.”

But as human space flight transitions from the Shuttle era to the Constellation era, the business environment of the space industry itself is undergoing some significant changes.

NASA currently is not planning to pursue another fully integrated operations contract, such as the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC) or its predecessor, the Space Flight Operations Contract (SFOC). Instead, program support contracts will be managed by individual NASA centers. Additionally, NASA has made clear its goal of reducing the cost of operations in order to better manage programs that compete for funding in a fiscally conservative environment.

“Other companies will claim that they can operate space systems for their customers at lower cost by slashing overhead, introducing automation and new technologies,” said McCulley. “To win new work, we must provide competitive, best value solutions to maintain our position as the leader in space operations.”

Many of the skills needed to operate the Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) will be directly applicable to Constellation in the future.

“We need to position ourselves to transition those skills to the new program by offering creative, innovative solutions for space operations that only we are capable of delivering,” said Anne Martt, Vice President and Constellation Program Manager. “Ultimately, our competitive advantage is our breadth of capabilities and experience.”

DeCastro said completing the Shuttle’s mission safely and successfully lays the ground work for the Constellation Program.

“To ensure safe and timely operations, it is vital that we retain our highly skilled workforce. Every employee is important and contributes in his or her own way to the success of USA and the Shuttle Program.

“Some USA employees possess specific critical skills, and it would be very difficult to replace them with fully trained and certified candidates as the program winds down,” DeCastro said. “We are currently working to address both the critical skill and the total workforce issues.”

Norm Gookins, USA’s Vice President for Human Resources and Administration, said employee retention is a complex issue and is a high priority for NASA as well.

“There’s not one magic solution,” Gookins said. “We’re looking at many aspects of employee retention and are trying to create an environment that promotes retention while keeping in mind the budget and competitive challenges we also have.”

One retention measure recently announced was the enhancement of USA’s severance package.

“There are no workforce reduction actions planned at this time, but we felt it was important to address employee concerns and provide some additional income protection in case some tasks are phased out as the program winds down,” Gookins said.

Still, there is considerable work ahead for the Shuttle and ISS teams. SPOC, under which USA provides support to the Shuttle, ISS and some Constellation transition work, extends through 2010 with five one-year options if needed for ISS and for Shuttle transition and closeout.

Even after the Space Shuttle has completed its missions, ISS will have achieved its full operational capabilities and will continue operations for several years.

“ USA has a key role in the ISS through at least 2016, and our performance supporting the ISS will be a daily demonstration of our value to the Constellation customer and others we seek to do business with in the future,” said Brian Breen, ISS Program Manager.

Joe Hammond, USA’s Vice President for Business Development, said USA is aggressively promoting its capabilities and marketing itself to Constellation and other space operations customers across the industry.

“We have achieved a strong position with the Constellation system elements by winning critical operations roles on the Ares I and Orion Project teams,” Hammond said. “Additionally, we are pursuing work on the Ares Upper Stage processing and instrumentation contracts and will be aggressively pursuing new operations work with NASA and others.”

An important part of that effort is establishing relationships with prospective customers other than NASA in a market that really has only known USA from its role on Shuttle, according to Hammond.

“More and more, we are finding that our efforts to become more widely known within our target markets are paying off,” he said. “We spend a lot less time explaining who we are and more time discussing how our capabilities apply directly to any current or future program. That is very encouraging to me.”

“I have great optimism for the future,” said McCulley. “I am extremely confident that we will not only meet the challenge but will exceed all expectations. That has been our modus operandi since day one.

“This USA team has built its reputation on stepping up to challenges. It is what we do and who we are.”

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