spacetoday.net: ATK and Astrium unveil Liberty crew transportation system

Posted: Thu, May 10, 2012, 11:12 AM ET (1512 GMT)
Liberty rocket concept (ATK)

Aerospace companies ATK and EADS Astrium unveiled Wednesday their concept for a crew transportation system using their proposed Liberty rocket and a crew capsule leveraging Orion technologies. The system, announced Wednesday at a space conference in Los Angeles, features the Liberty rocket previously proposed by the two companies, using a five-segment solid rocket booster for the lower stage and an upper stage based on the core Ariane 5 stage. The capsule would be based on a composite crew module previously developed for NASA, along with a service module that is a scaled-down version of one under development for Orion, and a Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) developed and tested by NASA in 2009. Company officials said that if they receive sufficient funding from NASA's commercial crew program, they could perform the first crewed flight of the system in 2015. The companies said they would continue to develop the system even if not funded, albeit at a slower pace.