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>> Kyle: We have an opportunity to be joined here
in the flight control room
by certainly no stranger to mission control.
Derek Hassman is a flight director.
He's also working in the Commercial Crew Program,
and he's just been named to be the Partner Manager
for SpaceX base exploration technologies.
And we're real happy to have Derek stop by the front corner
of the room, instead of back there at the flight console.
So welcome, Derek, great to have you hear.
>> Derek Hassman: Thanks, Kyle, it's good to be back.
>> Kyle: Well, obviously, most people know you
as a flight director, but talk a little bit
about your background, how you got to NASA and got
into this business in the first place?
>> Derek Hassman: Sure, you bet, I can do that.
Graduated from the University of Texas in Austin in 1988.
I worked for a couple years for General Dynamics in Fort Worth
on the F16 program there.
And then I had an opportunity to move to Houston,
worked for a NASA contractor in 1990.
From 1990 to 2000 I was in the mission operations directorate
as a flight controller for the International Space
Station Program.
I worked STS88 on the station side, which was the first ...
>> Kyle: Right.
>> Derek Hassman: ...
mission to deliver U.S. hardware to the space station.
Then I also worked, I finished my flight control career
as a flight controller on STS98,
which delivered the Destiny Laboratory.
>> Kyle: Right, the laboratory.
We've been watching some of that this morning.
>> Derek Hassman: Right.
And then in 2000 I was fortunate enough to be selected
as a flight director, and which is what I've been doing
from 2000 to 2012.
I was a lead flight director on STS120 which delivered node two,
and then STS134, which delivered the AMS experiment, the station,
and worked a number of other shuttle assembly missions
and have worked countless shifts in this room over the years
between shuttle flights.
>> Kyle: Very familiar with this room.
>> Derek Hassman: Absolutely.
And then in October of last year I got the opportunity
to do a rotation or temporary assignment
in the Commercial Crew Program,
and I guess about six months ago I volunteered to be a member
of the Evaluation Board that was evaluating the proposals
that were submitted by the commercial providers
for the CCiCap effort.
>> Kyle: Right.
>> Derek Hassman: So I wrapped that up, and came back -
that effort was actually at KSC, so I spent about three months
out at KSC doing the proposal review and then came back
to Houston, was offered the job of Partner Manager,
which I'm very excited about and I accepted.
>> Kyle: Well, which leads us to, obviously,
to your current role with - as the Partner Manager with SpaceX.
How familiar, obviously, with all the proposal work
that you did, you're very familiar with what's going on,
but how familiar are you anyhow with SpaceX?
You probably already had some early meetings
with those folks, right?
>> Derek Hassman: Yes, as a matter of fact,
when I was in the flight director office from 2008
to 2009 I was involved in some of the early planning
that we were doing for the cargo missions ...
>> Kyle: Oh, right, right.
>> Derek Hassman: ...
that SpaceX is supporting.
I was actually working with both SpaceX and Orbital,
both of who have - both of whom have contracts
to do the cargo resupply to station.
So I worked with SpaceX for about a year-and-a-half,
prior to this commercial crew assignment, made a number
of trips out to Hawthorne, to their facility out there.
So I had relationships with a number of folks out there,
and understood a lot about the culture
and the capabilities and such.
So it would - that helped me in my new role.
>> Kyle: So that transition had to be pretty smooth then
because you already had that familiarization
from the flight control aspect, right?
>> Derek Hassman: Right.
That helped a lot, and then additionally Garrett Riesman
[assumed spelling] is their program manager
for their Dragon Writer Program, SpaceX', and Garrett was,
of course, an astronaut.
So I worked with Garrett quite a bit in my role
as flight director, so I had a previous working relationship
with Garrett, as well.
>> Kyle: So you guys, after this announcement
which came early August,
SpaceX was awarded I think $440 million ...
>> Derek Hassman: That's correct.
>> Kyle: ...
as part of CCiCap.
>> Derek Hassman: Correct.
>> Kyle: But you've already as this new core team talk
about the structure of your team now and you guys just went
out there, I don't know if it's a kickoff meeting
or how you describe your early stage of getting
into the milestone development for CCiCap?
>> Derek Hassman: Right.
Last week I actually made a trip out there with my partner,
Integration Team Management.
John Cowert [assumed spelling] is my deputy
for executing the CCiCap milestones
or the SpaceX agreement.
Sharon Malloy [assumed spelling] is my deputy
for the certification piece of the effort.
So the three of us went out to SpaceX last week,
sat down with Garrett Riesman.
Met a bunch of the other employees.
Just talked about strategy and the road ahead,
talked about the milestones that we have planned, and just kind
of got reacquainted with the facility and the people.
And then next week we'll have our first two milestones.
The first milestone, of course, is the kickoff meeting
where SpaceX gives a presentation
on where they are today, what the status
of their Dragon spacecraft is, what the status
of their Falcon 9 rocket is.
They'll talk about their ground systems and,
as well as their mission control systems.
So just establish a baseline for where we go from there.
>> Kyle: I think we probably all know the answer to this,
but how valuable is it that SpaceX has already been working
on the cargo aspect of this?
It's, certainly they've even described the Dragon
as in its early development was really
in their mind they thought of it as a crew vehicle,
and basically are using it as a cargo [inaudible]
but they have an integrated approach.
They have their own rocket, they have their own spacecraft,
but how valuable is it that they are already integrated
into the space station program with the cargo aspect of this?
>> Derek Hassman: It's a tremendous advantage,
a tremendous benefit to SpaceX, so to NASA,
because we have the experience of working with them.
But that has been SpaceX' stated goal all along,
to eventually fly crew to space,
and they've designed their rocket
and their spacecraft to that end.
There's going to be a significant amount
of modifications and upgrades that have to happen.
>> Kyle: Right.
>> Derek Hassman: For example, on the spacecraft,
when they flew the cargo missions they didn't have an
environmental control or life support system,
which obviously is required to support the crew.
>> Kyle: Right.
>> Derek Hassman: And in general across their spacecraft
and rocket they didn't necessarily have the amount
of design margin, performance margin, redundancy that's going
to be required to fly crew.
But the fact that they have existing hardware that's built
and designed and flight proven, they've got the systems
on the ground, they've got trained teams on the ground,
all of that is a tremendous benefit
for them heading into the iCap effort.
>> Kyle: You talked about the structure
and how it's a little - how is it a little different now
than it was in terms of the pit team, as they're known,
relative to what it was under CC Dev 2 [assumed spelling],
which was the previous Space Act agreement work?
>> Derek Hassman: One of the key differences between CC Dev 2
and CCiCap is that for iCap we asked for an integrated system.
So the proposals had to include a spacecraft, a rocket
or a launch vehicle, as well as the systems on the ground
to do all the ground processing leading up to launch
and to do the mission control function on the ground.
So what we're looking for an integrated system and,
in addition to that, the key point of emphasis
or focus during iCap is going to be certification.
How does the commercial provider propose to certify their system,
to prove that it's acceptable and meets all the requirements
for a human rating, to fly crew into space,
which is obviously a much higher bar than exists for cargo?
>> Kyle: Right.
>> Derek Hassman: So in order to support
that we broke-up the deputy position in the way
that I described earlier.
We've got John Cowert focusing on the execution
of the milestones and the day-to-day activities
that SpaceX does to execute those milestones,
and then we've got another deputy, Sheryl Malloy,
to support - to focus on the certification piece.
And that's - in the 20-month, 21-month execution of iCap
that certification is going to be a key area of emphasis
that we need to make a lot of progress on in order
to support the downstream activities after iCap.
>> Kyle: All right, and risk
and certification are two big key words
in this program right now, in fact, we're going to -
Brent Jet [assumed spelling] is going to stop by,
he's the Deputy Manager of the Commercial Crew Program,
he's going to stop by, hopefully tomorrow and fill us in probably
in more detail on all of that
because that obviously is a big aspect of the next step
in getting to a crew vehicle to be able to travel to the station
and support U.S. crew rotation activities, right?
>> Derek Hassman: Absolutely.
And we're doing things a little bit different
with these Space Act agreements in that we don't have the level
of control or the level of insight that we would have
with a traditional contract.
So what we need to do in the context
of the Space Act agreements is to identify the key areas
of risk, the key areas of risk or perhaps potential challenges
down the road where we want to have the most NASA insight,
as opposed to penetrating across the board to the same level
of detail in all the system.
So it's very important to identify risk and areas
of open work, in areas
of significant design challenges, as we move forward.
>> Kyle: You talked about the early milestones in CCiCap,
what are some of the others that are - you've got it laid
out across this 21-month period of time that will lead to -
I guess leads up to the point of critical design review
or right about there, right?
>> Derek Hassman: Yes, the way it's set-up SpaceX has a total
of 14 milestones.
The second to the last milestone is a critical design review,
and that's - that represents a fairly mature design
for the integrated system, for the rocket and the spacecraft
and all the ground systems.
It's basically once you get
to critical design review you're ready to cut metal, so to speak,
you start - you're ready to build the configuration
of the control spacecraft and rocket,
leading toward an eventual launch.
And between now and that critical design review,
there's another - a number of other critical milestones.
There's a safety review.
There's a human certification review, which SpaceX is going
to tell us what they plan to do to certify their system.
And there's also two very, very significant test activities
that SpaceX plans to conduct.
There's a pad abort test in which SpaceX will demonstrate
that the rocket and the launch abort system - excuse me,
the spacecraft with the launch abort system is capable
of safely taking the spacecraft away from the pad in the case
of some significant issue with the rocket,
and they will also conduct an inflight abort test,
where it'll be a flight-like rocket, flight-like spacecraft
with a launch abort system.
They'll actually launch the integrated vehicle,
and then abort the spacecraft in - as it's going up the hill
and during ascent, so two significant test activities
that I'm certainly looking forward to.
>> Kyle: That's a lot of work to do
in 21 months the way it's laid-out,
and I think everybody recognizes that it's going to be a lot
of fun to follow along with this and to be part of it.
And, hopefully, we'll be able to bring all of that to the viewers
and the public out there.
So, Derek Hassman, we really appreciate you stopping
by the console today to update us on this latest steps
in the Commercial Crew Program.
Derek Hassman, the Partner Manager for SpaceX,
for the Commercial Crew Program.
[ Pause ]