The Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

With a robust Shuttle flight schedule, continuing Space Station operations, numerous contract competitions and essential transformation initiatives, USA President and Chief Executive Officer Dick Covey says the next three years at United Space Alliance will be full of challenge and opportunity as the team completes its mission with the Shuttle and moves ahead to claim a role in the next era of human space flight.

“The next three years will be busy, busy, busy,” Covey said. “We’re planning on flying six Space Shuttle missions next year. That’s not the most that we’ve ever flown in one year at USA, but it is the most that we will fly between now and the end of the program.

“Each of those missions is incredibly complex and is linked together in a way that will enable us to complete the International Space Station (ISS), as well as service the Hubble Space Telescope, next August. On top of that, business development activities will reach a peak for the next year or so as the new opportunities in future space operations begin to manifest themselves.

“The only way I can characterize the next three years is by saying we will be terribly busy across the board doing all of our normal support activities for Shuttle and Station, and working to capture new business and to support the development of Constellation systems.”

Covey said that USA has a solid business foundation through the end of the Shuttle program. The Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC) runs through September 30, 2010, and funds USA’s support of the Space Shuttle program through its retirement in 2010.

SPOC and five other contracts also provide for USA’s support of the ISS program through 2015.

But, “as the Shuttle program ends and we transition to Constellation, we’re entering into a highly competitive environment in which USA is relatively new,” Covey said. “The very nature of that environment will require change.”

Covey said NASA will continue to be USA’s primary customer.

“Our member companies have been very clear in their direction to us that NASA’s human space flight operations programs are what they want us to focus on,” he said.

And while USA is in excellent position to perform operations for Constellation programs in the future, much of that work will be competed.

“For our first 11 years, NASA has ‘sole sourced’ our work to us,” Covey said. “We’re now entering an environment where we will not get all of the work we do on that basis. But we know the people that will compete against us, and we know the cost structures that they have.

“We’ll have to try to manage to those realities. That will mean we will have to make some hard decisions. For instance, we may not be able to provide the full range of services and benefits to our employees in the future that we have in the past.”

One significant change with the new Constellation systems will be a more streamlined operations approach suited to the simpler systems and facilities.

“The bottom line is that because there will be less requirement for operations work in the new systems, USA will be a smaller company than it is today after the transition to Constellation,” Covey said.

In the meantime, keeping the Shuttle team together - retaining the workforce necessary for the safe and successful completion of the Shuttle program - is a critical issue facing USA.

“We have a wonderful job as a company supporting the Space Shuttle and the Space Station as we do,” Covey said. “Many of us who have grown up with the Shuttle program know the importance of flying safely right through the last mission.

“Our hope is that those people who want to continue on and support other space flight programs will have the opportunity for jobs with us beyond 2010. For those people who are unable to do that, we have enhanced our severance policy to assist those individuals in the transition to new employers. Working with the Space Shuttle Program, we’ve developed a plan to incentivize those employees who have critical skills that will be difficult to replace and recertify before the end of the program to stay.

“We know that those incentives alone are not going to convince employees to stay with us. Many of us will stay because we recognize the importance, the excitement of flying a Shuttle and because there aren’t many jobs like it around.”

Employee feedback collected through a variety of means clearly indicates that the primary factor in retaining employees is a clear vision of what opportunities in the human space flight program may be available for them with USA or the other contractors working on Constellation.

“I am convinced that a vision of a future role or the ability to safely transition from a current role to a new one are critical things that we need to provide our folks,” Covey said. “That will be a key component of my job for the next few years.”

Covey said he is pleased with USA’s success to date in securing positions on the major Constellation development teams. USA is a partner on ATK’s team for the Ares I first stage, Boeing’s team for the Ares I Upper Stage production and Lockheed Martin’s team for the Orion spacecraft.

“We are continuing to look for opportunities to get on the teams that will be developing the systems for the Constellation era so that we can provide our operational skills and abilities to support those efforts,” he said.

The first contracts for spaceflight operations work – contracts for which USA would compete as a prime contractor – are just beginning to be discussed and formulated. The Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) at the Johnson Space Center recently indicated its intention of awarding a sole source contract, called Integrated Mission Operations Contract (IMOC), to USA to provide “plan, train and fly” support to the ISS and Constellation beyond SPOC. Additionally, MOD plans to competitively award a contract, called the Facility Development and Operations Contract (FDOC), for the development, operations and maintenance of mission support facilities sometime in 2008.

At the Kennedy Space Center, NASA is proceeding with several procurement activities that require expertise in areas that fall within USA’s core competencies, such as the Information Management and Communication Support (IMCS) Contract and the Institutional Services Contract (ISC). The Ground Processing Services (GPS) Contract, also to be managed by KSC, will provide for launch processing support for Ares I and Ares V space vehicle and associated ground support equipment.

“We’re positioned well,” Covey said. “The strength of our ability to get that work is directly derived from our performance on SPOC with the Space Shuttle and Space Station today.”

Overall, Covey said he is excited by the challenges and opportunities facing the company over the next few years.

“In 2007, we had another incredible year of supporting our NASA customer through SPOC,” he said. “The dedication of our employees is key to accomplishing NASA’s mission of safely flying out the Space Shuttle and completing the Space Station, and because our team is so good at what they do, I am going to be able to focus on those things that are important to the future of USA.

“My priority for the next couple of years will be shaping our company so that we can secure new work for the future and aggressively and actively pursue that work so that we have jobs for as many people as we can.”

“I think the work that USA does is incredibly exciting and incredibly important to NASA and our nation,” he said. “To be able to lead the great people in this company who are so dedicated to the success of the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs and to the future Constellation programs, that’s what motivates me. It is a rare opportunity.”

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