In an attempt to streamline procedures and relieve cramped manifests, managers could transfer some Atlas and Delta rocket missions from Florida to California and assign U.S. military payloads to specific boosters closer to launch, according to the Air Force's top space official.

File photo of an Atlas 5 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral. Credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now

"We're looking at better ways to manifest satellites on a particular rocket. Right now, we do that about two years in advance," said Gary Payton, the undersecretary of the Air Force for space. "A particular satellite is married to a particular launch vehicle about two years in advance."

Officials are considering reducing that time to cushion the impact of a payload problem on downstream flights in the launch manifest.

The unavailability of payloads has triggered ripple delays on the Atlas and Delta launch schedule more often than rocket problems.

"That inhibits our launch rate independent of infrastructure and workforce," Payton told Spaceflight Now last week.

"What we're probably going to do is assign perhaps more than one satellite to any given launcher until maybe a year before launch," Payton said. "That way it's easier to accommodate spacecraft development slips that occur after an assignment."

Another option being reviewed by the Air Force and United Launch Alliance brass is to move some high-inclination flights from Cape Canaveral to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, called Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles by the Air Force, can launch Global Positioning System satellites from either coast. The next generation of critical navigation satellites, known as the GPS 2F series, will begin launching from Florida in May.

ULA operates the EELV rocket fleet for military, NASA and commercial missions.

"We would like to be able to get to the point where we can project six months or a year down the road that we're going to have a surge of launches all ganged too close together, that we may pull a GPS launch over to Vandenberg," Payton said. "The same rocket and orbitology allows you to launch out of Vandenberg.

The only issue is whether proper facilities are available at Vandenberg to prepare GPS spacecraft for launch.

"Before we add that flexibility into our future, we have to understand the ramifications of doing that," Payton said. "We are looking at it, and it is something I would love to have in our hip pocket if we get too many launches packed too close together at the Cape."

Michael Gass, ULA's president and CEO, said in February there is "serious discussion" about moving compatible launches from the East Coast to the West Coast.

The EELV manifest at Cape Canaveral is historically busier than the launch schedule at Vandenberg. Atlas 5 and Delta 4 vehicles have flown 10 times from Florida in the last two years, while the West Coast launch base has hosted just a single EELV flight in the same period.

Classified satellite projects managed by the National Reconnaissance Office have hopped coasts before. Top secret naval surveillance satellites have been launched on different versions of the Atlas rocket from Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral.

"For new programs, it's something we may want to consider up front," Gass said. "It's whole lot easier designing a program up front versus changing a program mid-stream."

Artist's concept of a GPS 2F satellite in orbit. Credit: Boeing

Busy launch schedules are nothing new, especially at Cape Canaveral, where Atlas and Delta rockets have operated at nearly full capacity for the last year.

The Air Force has surged funding into the program to cut turnaround times for the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 boosters. Atlas 5 rockets can now theoretically launch 45 days apart at the Cape. There is no fixed turnaround time for the Delta 4, but that rocket's processing timeline has also been compressed, Gass said in a February interview.

The extra funding permitted ULA to add more employees to a second shift in vehicle processing and flight analysis.

Easing launch schedule bottlenecks is the subject of one of about a half-dozen reports the Air Force will deliver to Congress on the EELV program in the coming months.

Other topics the military is reviewing include tamping down rising launch prices for the EELV fleet.

Payton said Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets now go for between $120 million and about $165 million per flight, depending on the configuration needed.

Those prices are far below the $500 million the Air Force paid for each Titan 4 rocket launch before the EELV program took over the Pentagon's space lift requirements.

But officials are concerned costs could be forced higher because the EELV flight rate is too low to adequately address fixed costs at critical suppliers, including Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, the builder of the RS-68 and RL10 hydrogen-fueled engines.

Pratt & Whitney manufactures the Space Shuttle Main Engine and was expected to build the J-2X engines to power the second stage of the Ares 1 rocket, which was canceled with NASA's Constellation program under the White House budget request Feb. 1.

Testifying March 10 before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Payton said EELV propulsion system costs could double. During the hearing, Payton highlighted effects of the Constellation program's termination on Air Force launch costs.

But Payton said the roots of the problem can be traced long before Feb. 1, and the military started working to address the issue last summer.

"Our cost concerns on EELV precede NASA's Constellation program [cancellation]," Payton said Thursday.

The Air Force could buy multiple Atlas and Delta rockets at a time, allowing suppliers to realize economies of scale to keep marginal costs down and spread fixed costs across more vehicles.

"Right now, we buy very inefficiently, and we admit that," Payton said. "One of the reports to Congress was something they called a multi-vehicle buy, where we could go in and buy maybe a whole year's worth of rockets."

The Defense Contract Management Agency and the Defense Contract Audit Agency are studying the EELV program's supply chain to determine what each Atlas and Delta rocket should cost.