Paper Session III-C - Accelerated Low cost Liquid Engine Stage Development for Critical Needs Missions

Based on near term mission needs for liquid engine target stages for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) Office, the Astronautcs Laboratory at Edwards AFB, California, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have formed an unparalleled alliance to develop an accelerated low cost liquid engine target stage program. To satisfy high profile accelerated projects in support of SDIO near and long term missions, liquid target stage development is needed for a variety of mission support roles. The AL and JPL laboratories have brought to life a unique method and philosophy for creating an accelerated program to develop a liquid target stage. The philosphy utilizes inherent advantages present in surplus flight qualified components as the basis for a design start, then accelerating the design process using conservative constraints, fabricating structural components from preliminary released design drawings, and assembling the components from first release assembly drawings. Vehicle assembly is in structure specific stages, thereby allowing all design, fabrication, and assembly disciplines to run in parallel, developing a fast paced flow from ideas to assembled components. Integration is also broken into phases, with the final product assembled from the structure specific stages. By keeping multiple components and stage segments in parallel in each discipline, changes or problems can be accommodated with a minimum of disturbance, and be incorporated in final assembly with no loss of schedule