|
Atlas V production creates challenges, opportunities
A servant brought in dinner. It was ... in a dish of about 24-foot diameter. The farmer placed me at some distance from him on the table, which was thirty foot high from the floor. I was in a terrible fright, and kept as far as I could from the edge for fear of falling.
Such was Gulliver’s experience in the land of Brobdingnag, and a recent tour of the United Launch Alliance plant — and its Atlas V additions — in Decatur put me in mind of it.
Even before marveling at the sophistication of the plant, one marvels at its scale. Scattered through the 1.5 million-square-foot plant are various stages of Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, their diameters ranging from 12 to 16 feet, almost as wide as the Brobdingnagian dinner plate. The size of the plant precludes walking from one station to the next, so workers use golf carts or adult-sized tricycles, dozens of which pedal through the plant.
The Delta IV is a marvel to which Decatur is accustomed, its Boeing plant having produced its first Delta IV in 2000. The latest addition to the plant, and the occasion for my tour, is the Atlas V.
Adding production of the Atlas V to the 680-employee plant has resulted in minimal changes to the plant’s footprint.
Instead, plant manager Dan Caughran and former plant manager Phil Marshall streamlined production and reduced the space needed for production within the facility.
Doubling the lights
ULA doubled the number of lights in the now-bright facility, painted its vast floor and removed or repositioned numerous interior walls.
“We are really trying to brighten it as part of putting the emphasis on detail,” Caughran said.
It is about to expand the lobby area, both for visitors and in-house training.
ULA is a joint venture between the satellite-launch rocket divisions of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. The Delta IV was Boeing’s heavy-lift product, designed to meet Department of Defense specifications for an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. The Atlas V was Lockheed’s competing product.
In recent months, ULA has transferred Atlas V assembly operations from Denver to Decatur. Some remaining assembly functions will soon be transferred from San Diego to Decatur, as will operations in Harlingen, Texas.
What that means for Decatur is that it has become the center of the universe for U.S. satellite-launch vehicles. Already the assembly point for the Delta IV, it will take over all final assembly for the Atlas V.
While Caughran downplays it, the plant has an air of nervous excitement that originated in Washington, D.C.
President Barack Obama, in recommending an end to NASA’s Constellation program, placed ULA as the prime contender for a role in manned spaceflight.
The possibility of a human-rated Atlas V or Delta IV, said Caughran, “re-emphasizes the importance of what we are doing, of why we need to stay very focused on our immediate requirements. That is what we at Decatur operations can do. We can continue to build and deliver the most perfect hardware we can. That will position ULA for any future opportunities, whether NASA-related or otherwise.
“The main thing is that we must stay focused, doing what we do and making sure we do it the best we can.”
Overhead combined
While similar to the Delta IV in function, the Atlas V has many differences. In encouraging the formation of ULA, the Defense Department was straddling two goals. On the one hand, it wanted the efficiencies and cost savings that would come from combining the overhead of two separate rocket systems. On the other hand, it wanted to maintain separate systems so that if problems develop in one, the other remains available.
Both rockets use liquid oxygen to fuel their first stages, but the Atlas V also uses high-grade kerosene, whereas the Delta IV adds liquid hydrogen.
Liquid oxygen presents problems at launch because it must be maintained at such low temperatures that ice formation on its tank could add unacceptable weight at the time of launch. The Delta IV deals with this problem by applying spray-on insulating foam.
The Atlas V uses foam panels, glued to the liquid oxygen fuel tank. Caughran said ULA is testing the feasibility of switching from foam panels to spray-on foam for the Atlas V.
“Right now, both tanks — the fuel tank and the liquid oxygen tank — are welded together in Denver,” Caughran said. “Those tanks are shipped down here for final assembly. The second phase of our consolidation process will be bringing that welding capability from Denver to here. That will be done about a year from now.”
The fuel tanks, though enormous, are fragile. Weight is the enemy when trying to escape Earth’s gravitational pull, so the thickest portions of the stainless steel tanks are 0.068 inches.
Caughran pointed to green bags, containing helium, attached to the huge cylinders.
“That is where we maintain pressure on the tanks,” he said. “It’s basically a stainless steel balloon. If it does not have pressure on it, it will collapse on itself.”
The Atlas V is borrowing an advanced welding process developed for the Delta IV, and Atlas welding operations soon will move from San Diego to Decatur.
The rockets use different engines, the Atlas V depending on the Russian-built RD-180. Caughran speaks with enthusiasm about the efficiency and reliability of the RD-180, but it presents a political liability. Tensions between Russia and the United States could disrupt ULA’s access to the engine, which could imperil launches at a time when the Defense Department needs them most.
Caughran said ULA is aware of the issue. The company has a 21-engine inventory in the U.S., so it would have plenty of time to develop alternatives. The engine is built in Russia through a joint venture of U.S.-based Pratt & Whitney and its developer, NPO Energomash. Caughran said efforts are under way to locate an assembly plant for the engine in the United States.
NASA last month proposed budgeting money for private development of a U.S. engine comparable to the RD-180.
Like the Delta IV, the Atlas V can use strap-on solid rocket boosters to increase its lift if the weight of the payload requires it. An advantage of the Atlas V is that the upper stage’s design is identical, regardless of whether it will need the boosters.
“It does not matter if they are flying with zero solids or five solids. They are all built the same,” Caughran said. “That really gives us flexibility and responsiveness to make customer changes or mission changes.”
The process of adding Atlas V production capability to the Decatur plant — while still producing Delta IVs and Delta IIs — has been a management nightmare.
“It is like trying to change the wheel on a car that is moving,” Caughran said. “We are still having to build and support our (Delta) customers’ needs, while also organizing and developing the (Atlas) capabilities here. All that activity is a disruption to the work that is going on.”
ULA and its employees, however, met the challenge.
“The process has exceeded my expectations,” Caughran said. “It has been remarkable. We started construction (to prepare for Atlas V production) in March last year and the first parts arrived seven or eight months after that. A lot had to take place. About a three- or four-month window is all we had to bring this up and shut the Denver capability (for Atlas V production) down.”
Caughran said Decatur should be proud of an issue that did not create major problems for ULA. Key employees in Denver and San Diego were willing to move to North Alabama.
“The acceptance rate has exceeded our expectations,” said Caughran, whose family is about to close on a house in Southwest Decatur. “We asked 50 Denver employees to move down here, and we had 32 people who accepted. San Diego is not quite as high a percentage, but about 30 percent of our San Diego work force has agreed. I think it speaks very highly for Decatur operations and to the Decatur community.”
He recounted the recent visit of a key employee from San Diego who spent a week helping out in Decatur, with no obligation to remain here and no plan to do so.
“By the second day he was calling his wife and saying, ‘We have to move down here.’ The people were so welcoming to him, both in ULA and in the community,” Caughran said. “We’ve all experienced that.”
Atlas V launches
The first Atlas V to pass through Decatur is slated to launch in late July or early August. Much of the rocket, however, was assembled in Denver. The first Atlas V entirely assembled at Decatur’s United Launch Alliance is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in December.
|