WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 /EMWNews/ -- In a news conference

Monday, NASA managers discussed how the agency will be adjusting the

budget, schedule and technical performance milestones for its Constellation

Program to ensure the first crewed flight of the Ares I rocket and Orion

crew capsule in March 2015.



    The Constellation Program is developing the spacecraft and systems,

including the Ares I and Ares V rockets, the Orion crew exploration

vehicle, and the Altair lunar lander, that will take astronauts to the

International Space Station after the retirement of the space shuttle, and

eventually return humans to the moon.



    "Since the program's inception, NASA has been working an aggressive

plan to achieve flight capability before our March 2015 target," said Rick

Gilbrech, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission

Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We are still confident the

Constellation Program will make its first flight to the International Space

Station on or before that date. Our new path forward better aligns our

project schedules with our existing funds to ensure we can address the

unplanned challenges that always arise when developing a complex flight

system."



    NASA will retire the space shuttles in 2010 and had established a goal

of achieving flight capability for the Constellation Program before 2015 to

narrow the gap in America's human spaceflight capability. As such, NASA

aligned Constellation contracts and internal milestones against a date much

earlier than March 2015 to incentivize an earlier flight capability.



    As part of an annual budget process that evaluates the program's

budget, schedule and technical performance milestones, NASA will be working

with its contractors to discuss how program plans and internal milestones

should be adjusted -- a process that will take several months and require

contract modifications and associated milestone realignments. Such

adjustments are not unusual for a complex development program as work

matures and schedules and resources are aligned.



    For more information about the Constellation Program, visit:



    http://www.nasa.gov/constellation