SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A leading aerospace company has unveiled plans for a new space system that could put NASA astronauts back in orbit by 2016 and create jobs in northern Utah.
ATK is trying to land a contract with NASA or others for its new Liberty commercial space transportation system.
Since ending the shuttle program last year, NASA depends on Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the space station. But the agency is looking for companies that can launch astronauts to the space station instead.
ATK says the Liberty program would give the U.S. a new launch capability and end its dependence on Russia. Instead of building rocket motors for NASA vehicles, the company would offer a complete system, including spacecraft, launch vehicle and mission operations.
"Instead of supplying a component to their requirements, we're offering the entire service," Joe Oliva, ATK's director of business development for Liberty, told The Herald Journal of Logan. "In essence, our customers are people who want a ride into space or people who want to put cargo and satellites into space."
Kent Rominger, ATK vice president for the Liberty Launch Vehicle, said NASA is just one of its potential customers.
"We also want to carry cargo to the space station," he told the Deseret News. "We want to offer rides to other nations."
ATK would be the prime contractor in a group of companies that would build the Liberty Launch Vehicle, top to bottom.
"The entire vehicle will be managed and run from the prime in Utah," Rominger said, adding it would mean about 300 jobs in Utah and possibly many more later if ATK wins the NASA contract.
At the height of the space shuttle program in the 1990s, 8,000 people worked for ATK in Utah. By last year, there were only about 1,500 employees as the shuttle program wound down.
"We've gone through a phase of downsizing, which is obviously very painful," Rominger said. "This would turn that around."
NASA is expected to reach a decision on the contract by August. If approved, initial award amounts would fund final design work of the vehicle and ready the first Liberty rocket for flight in 2015, Oliva said.