spacetoday.net: ATK and NASA sign agreement to support Liberty development

Posted: Wed, Sep 14, 2011, 6:44 AM ET (1044 GMT)
Liberty rocket concept (ATK)

Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and NASA signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) on Tuesday to help development of a proposed rocket that could be used for commercial crew launches. The agreement will support initial studies of the Liberty rocket including a system design review. Liberty, announced by ATK earlier this year, is similar to the Ares 1 rocket from the now-canceled Constellation program from NASA. The rocket uses a five-segment solid rocket motor, based on the four-segment motors used on shuttle launches, as its first stage, and an upper stage based on the core stage of the Ariane 5 rocket, provided by EADS Astrium. ATK and EADS have offered the rocket for commercial crew providers, although the four companies with funded Commercial Crew Development agreements from NASA to work on vehicle concepts have for now selected other launch vehicles, including the Atlas 5 and Falcon 9.