Boeing is inviting UK companies to contribute technologies to NASA’s Constellation space exploration programme. The US giant is looking for technologies in a range of areas including long-term propellant storage, integrated vehicle health management, docking, life support and advanced extra-vehicular activity systems.
NASA’s Constellation programme envisages a return to the Moon by 2020 followed by construction of an international lunar outpost. The US space agency has already placed the contract for its Orion crew vehicle with Lockheed Martin, but Boeing is bidding for work on the upper stage of the Orion’s Ares I launcher, the Ares V heavylift booster and its Earth departure stage, the Lunar Surface Access Module, and lunar base equipment and habitats.
US export regulations are likely to limit areas in which UK companies can participate “There could be problems with [rocket] propulsion technology,” says Todd Fox, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems’ mission manager for the International Space Station, which could be a testbed for many of the technologies to be used in Moon missions.
Boeing has worked with five undisclosed UK companies on space contracts in the past. The work has ranged from software to risk management.
Source: Flight International
