Phase II upgrades will enhance system safety, reliability and provide supportability. They can be implemented at relatively low cost without impacting the flight manifest. Implementation of these changes into the fleet must be carefully planned to minimize impact to flight rate capability. The Liquid Flyback Booster would fall into this category. Many of the upgrades are brought about because of obsolescence.
Vendors go out of business or terminate product lines.
Some vendors must quit making chemicals because of tighter environmental restrictions. NASA personnel in the logistics depot at Kennedy and each of the hardware projects keep a pulse on the industry. Single Prime Contractor Transition United Space Alliance is now six months into their contract as the single prime contractor for Shuttle operations and the transition is going extremely well. The metrics used to measure the contractor performance are all positive. The ASAP has verified that the transition is going smoothly.