A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

-86-
i
the results of the initial study. The difficulty centered around the
Air Force requirement to make procurement decisions during the summer
of 1976 for the spacecraft that would be used on the initial Air Force
shuttle flight. The L-AEM spacecraft design had not been defined
technically; this would take two months of study by Boeing and would
thereby postpone the Air Force decision point.
One interest of the AEM Program Office in having the L-AEM design
considered in the Rand case study was based on the hope of providing
some justification for initiating the SMMS program, albeit for Air
Force missions. At the time of this study, the AEM Program Office had
not established a NASA requirement for the SMHS.
As indicated in Sec. IV, the results of the first phase of the
case study illustrated that a spacecraft having some of the characteristics
of the L-AEM (the upgraded AEM) would be part of the preferred procurement
option for the Space Test Program missions (see Table 12).
Consequently, it was our feeling that consideration of the L-AEM spacecraft
should be encouraged because it offered substantial cost savings
for the Air Force, even if it meant postponing the midsummer Air Force
procurement decision.
Air Force Space Test Program Office
The Air Force Space Test Program Office had for several years contracted
for individual spacecraft designed to handle a specific set
of experiments. This involved contracting for the launch vehicle,
spacecraft development, and payload integration. As discussed in
Sec. III, its interest in the standard spacecraft approach for carrying
out its missions centered around the availability of the space
shuttle and the possibility of realizing substantial budget savings
by applying its low-cost design philosophy to a standard spacecraft
design. The Space Test Program Office had been selected for one of the
first Air Force missions to fly on the shuttle, hence its critical
schedule problem if it were to use a standard spacecraft design.
NASA funded Boeing during the spring of 1976 to make a preliminary
design for the L-AEH spacecraft and to estimate its cost using the same
approach as used for the AEM spacecraft.