In the spring of 1999, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology formed an Interagency Working Group (IWG) to review the future management and use of the primary U.S. space launch ranges. In February 2000, the IWG produced a report. Among its findings, the IWG found that there was no coordinated program focused on next-generation range technology development that would support lower costs and improve mission support capabilities. Their recommendation was to have the U.S. Air Force and NASA develop a plan to coordinate, develop, and demonstrate next-generation range technologies. In response to that recommendation, NASA and the Air Force formulated a Memorandum of Agreement (signed January 2002) and established the Advanced Range Technologies Working Group (ARTWG) to serve as the forum for U.S. parties who have an interest in range technology development. The ARTWG will produce nationally recognized roadmaps of next-generation range technologies to be developed. These roadmaps will be maintained and updated annually. The working group is cochaired by NASA KSC and the Air Force Space Command.

The following steps were identified to gain national recognition credibility and to ensure roadmap development:

• Staff the subgroup leadership team (7 subgroups with 14 cochairs) and the subgroup membership with nationally recognized experts in their respective fields who have strong leadership skills and reflect the very different backgrounds and experiences of all the range users.
• Select candidates that reflect the diversity of the range technology development organizations (academia, industry, NASA, Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration [FAA], and other Federal agencies).
• Develop an implementation plan and process that ensures participation and synergistically interacts with other range technology development initiatives (e.g., Range Standardization).
• Develop a schedule that pushes the project along but allows for reprioritization to permit much-needed technology debate.
• Continue to refine and update the roadmaps annually.

KSC has made significant progress in all areas. All 14 subgroup cochairs have been appointed. They represent many of the range user organizations and were appointed because of their leadership skills and technical abilities. The cochairs are from industry (aerospace and consultant companies), NASA, Air Force Space Command, Air Force 45th Space Wing, FAA, and Air Force Florida Air National Guard. In addition, the subgroups included membership from academia, FAA, state government, and other Federal agencies.

An agreed-upon implementation plan and process (see the figures) were developed. The subgroup cochairs will lead their individual teams (Weather Systems, Telemetry Systems, Tracking and Surveillance, Scheduling and Coordination of Assets, Decision Making and Modeling, and Range Command and Control) through a series of activities. They will perform a system definition, a performance gap assessment, and a technology gap assessment, followed by the high-level trades needed to identify the candidate technologies. These assessments will create the candidate technology projects that will be used to develop the national road map. Over the next several months, these plans will be developed and the milestone schedule will be further refined.

Key milestones:

• Fully staff the subgroups and planned integration committees.
• Refine the overall ARTWG process.
• Continue to build the membership and coalition.
• Develop the National Range Technologies Roadmap.

Contact: D.M. Skelly (Darin.Skelly-1@ksc.nasa.gov), YA-E, (321) 861-3639
Participating Organizations: NASA: VB (J.M. Shaver), PH (S.J. Swichkow), TA (R.A. Turner), and YA (E.C. Denson and J.T. Madura); U.S. Air Force (Maj. D. Buck); Florida Air National Guard (Lt. Col. R. Schofield); Air Force Research Laboratory (Dr. S. Slivinsky and R.F. Ogrodnik); Aerospace Corporation (M. Fallon); Alaska Space Authority (P. Ladner); Air Force Space Command (Maj. D. Fogle and Maj. S. Van Sant); Booz, Allen, Hamilton (V. Villhard); and FAA (R. Heuwinkel)