ATL Liberty spacecraftATK has developed the new Liberty commercial crew transportation system, which includes the spacecraft, abort capabilities, launch vehicle, as well as ground and mission operations.

The system is designed to meet NASA’s commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap) and to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS); it is scheduled for the first test flight in 2014, followed by a crewed flight in late 2015.

ATK vice president, Liberty programme manager Kent Rominger said Liberty would provide the shortest time to operation using tested and proven human-rated components.

"Liberty will give the US a new launch capability with a robust business case and a schedule that we expect will have us flying crews in just three years, ending our dependence on Russia," he said.

ATK, the prime contractor, will provide composite crew module, max launch abort system (MLAS), first stage, system integration and ground and mission operations; whereas the Astrium will provide Vulcain 2 engine powered second stage and Lockheed Martin is responsible for subsystems and other support.

"Liberty will give the US a new launch capability with a robust business case and a schedule that we expect will have us flying crews in just three years, ending our dependence on Russia."

Each spacecraft is designed for ten flights, and the company is planning to build a minimum of four capsules to be launched aboard the Liberty launcher.

ATK said that the current schedule will support NASA’s crewed missions and other potential customers by 2016 with a low price-per-seat.

Liberty’s 44,500lb launch capability to low-earth orbit will facilitate the system to launch both crew and cargo.

It could even serve non-crewed markets, which include cargo delivery to ISS, commercial space station servicing, US Government satellite launch and future attempts.

ATK has developed the system under a CCDEV-2 unfunded space act agreement (SAA) with NASA, and the company claims that all development has been funded internally by ATK and Astrium.

Under this SAA, the team has completed four tests of Liberty and is planning to conduct the next structural test of the second stage tank at Astrium in June.

Since the retirement of space shuttle Discovery last year, the US Government is now depending on Russia to transport astronauts to ISS.

ATK is competing with SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and other companies to develop commercial crew transportation vehicles.


Image: The Liberty commercial crew transportation system will begin its crewed flights in late 2015. Photo: courtesy of ATK.