Northop Grummna's CEV Unveiled

A Northrop Grumman Corporation [&] The Boeing Company team today unveiled its plans to design and build NASA's proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), a modular space system intended to carry humans to the International Space Station by 2012 and back to the moon by 2018.

Photos accompanying this release are available [here].

The CEV comprises a crew module that builds on NASA's Apollo spacecraft, a service module and a launch-abort system. It is designed to be carried into space aboard a shuttle-derived launch vehicle -- a rocket based on the solid rocket booster technology that powers the early phases of current shuttle flights.

The CEV will be produced both as a crewed space transportation system and as an uncrewed space vehicle capable of transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station. NASA expects to select a CEV prime contractor in the spring of 2006.

Read the rest directly from Northrop Grumman here.

From Aviation Week:

CEV Competition Will Come Down To Cost, Northrop Grumman Says

With NASA dictating most elements of the design for its Crew Exploration Vehicle, the crux of the industry competition to build the vehicle will be the price tag and production efficiencies proposed by each team, according to Doug Young, Northrop Grumman's CEV program manager.

"Clearly it's all going to come down to cost," Young said Oct. 12. "The customer has been very clear in terms of where they want to go with the general approach, so it's going to really ultimately evolve into getting those cost numbers down to the bare minimum in order to achieve mission success."

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Whether or not it will be Lockheed or Northrop Grumman & Boeing. Originally, Lockheed was proposing a lifting body. From what I understand, this is no longer true. They've been swacked and told to do a capsule. That's interesting. That's not necessarily good. That's not necessarily bad. We shall see.

With the Russians teaming with the Europeans to build Kliper and the Chinese with their own taikonauts in orbit right now, we're seeing a space race once more, imo. It's about damn time. You (the rest of the wrold) have been lazy bums for too long. Unfortnately, I cannot say that America has been any better, frankly. I am just waiting for Japan and India to announce their own manned capabilities.