Engineers and managers in NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) are taking a "snapshot" of progress in developing the Orion and Ares I vehicles so they will know how much the expected continuing resolution (CR) for agency funding pending on Capitol Hill will stretch the "gap" in U.S. human space access after the shuttle fleet retires in 2010.

Administrator Michael Griffin said Aug. 8 the review will give the agency a more precise idea how far its internal date for Orion/Ares I initial operational capability (IOC) will move to the right for a given reduction in requested funding under a CR, which typically continues a budget line at the level spent in an earlier fiscal year.

"The next time I testify in front of Congress, I expect them to ask me what will be the impact of the CR, and I want to be able to say," Griffin said in an interview with Aviation Week & Space Technology.

The official IOC for an Ares I crew launch vehicle able to send a crew of six to the International Space Station (ISS) in the Orion crew exploration vehicle is March 2015. But NASA has maintained an "aggressive" internal IOC target with a 65 percent level of confidence that falls late in 2013 or early in 2014, Griffin said.

"We're going to adjust that internal date and let that slip out a little bit, by how much I don't know yet because it depends on facts not yet in evidence, like what is the magnitude of the CR, and what do we expect to see, and progress we've made to date," he said.

Griffin said he expects to have results on the program status "in the next few weeks" to be able to incorporate the best estimates in its next budget submission to the White House Office of Management and Budget in mid-September. That should track roughly with congressional action on the CR itself, which will give NASA figures for the exact cuts to the Orion and Ares I accounts.

While a CR will affect the downstream end of the gap, congressional action also could move the near-term side of the gap to the right, narrowing it by a few months. Griffin has told Congress NASA could fly one more shuttle flight beyond the 10 on the flight manifest to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) particle physics experiment to the ISS, provided another $300 million - $400 million is appropriated.

Right now the final shuttle flight - a mission to preposition large spare parts on the ISS - is set for May or June of 2010, which would leave room before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 to fly the AMS in August 2010.

"If money for the AMS flight is appropriated in fiscal '10 funds, even if we slipped beyond the end of fiscal '10, when the program shuts down, I could still carry the launch team, and could actually launch the shuttle in the first quarter of fiscal '11, and we'd still be OK," Griffin said.

Ares 1 artist's concept: NASA. Story originally appeared with Ares 5 art in error.