The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program Office recently received a top-level award for its efforts in saving the Air Force $5 to $7 billion.
EELV’s innovative payload-to-launch vehicle integration design and standardization of booster cores earned the program office the 1999 Defense Standardization Program National Honorary Award.
The driving force behind the EELV program is the effort to make space launch more affordable for the nation by using a family of unmanned, expendable space launch vehicles that have evolved from existing systems. These will comprise the Department of Defense’s sole source of expendable medium and heavy-lift transportation to orbit.
EELV has joined with Lockheed Martin Astronautics Corporation and the Boeing Company to develop a national launch capability that satisfies the government’s forecasted launch requirements and reduces the cost of space launch by at least 25 percent, said Lt. Col Jim Knauf, EELV and Delta IV program manager.
EELV is the first program designed to use a standard specification for government payloads that will use the same mechanical and electrical interface to the launch vehicle and will employ a standardized booster core. This new design will facilitate manufacturing, assembly, payload integration and launch operation process.
“EELV improves on the current Delta II, Atlas and Titan launch systems by providing, for the first time, standard mechanical, electrical and environmental payload-to-booster interfaces,” said Knauf. “This means we can more readily switch payloads from one EELV booster to the other. This flexibility is a first for the Air Force and is very important to the war fighter and (Air Force) Space Command.”
The Delta IV and Atlas V families of the EELV booster use the same standard booster core, said Knauf. The largest vehicle in each family basically uses the same core as the smallest vehicle
The EELV development program is about 75 percent complete. Production of flight vehicles for the first EELV launches are well underway, and the first government flight is scheduled to take place in May 2002.
