Competition Heats Up for Space Station Cargo Contract
Space.com
“Three U.S. firms are preparing to submit final bids for a pair of NASA International Space Station cargo services contract worth up to $3.1 billion through 2015.
“Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., and Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Va., have been honing their rival offers with the aid of $500 million in demonstration money NASA awarded under its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Also in the hunt for the two contracts NASA intends to award Dec. 23 is Chicago-based PlanetSpace, a commercial space startup that has built a team around the biggest names in the aerospace business.”
Press Release
PlanetSpace announced today it has added the Space Exploration division of The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) to its existing teammates, Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT), on the proposed solution to NASA for the Commercial Resupply Services to the International Space Station.
The PlanetSpace ISS Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) team includes the following major members:
- PlanetSpace is the overall prime contractor and manages the CRS contract.
- ATK provides the Athena III launch vehicle and ground processing.
- Lockheed Martin and Boeing will develop, produce and operate modular Orbital Transfer Vehicles (OTV) that serve as the cargo carriers to the International Space Station.
Continue reading ‘PlanetSpace Adds Boeing to COTS Team’
Pad 36 holds hope for jobs
Florida Today
“Hours after being dedicated as a commercial launch site, Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station got its first potential customer.
“PlanetSpace, a consortium of ATK, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, announced Wednesday a proposal to launch a 158-foot solid-fuel rocket by 2011 from the pad at Cape Canaveral, which the Air Force has agreed to lease to Space Florida. The rocket could carry about 2 metric tons of cargo to the International Space Station.
“NASA aims to announce on Dec. 23 whether PlanetSpace, or a competitor, has been chosen to provide the service.”
The opposition Liberal Party is calling upon the Nova Scotia government to actively support PlanetSpace’s plan to build a commercial spaceport on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
“The government should be saying, ‘What is it that we can do? Is there a role for the province to play to making it a reality? Is it feasible?’ Those kinds of questions need to be asked so that some economic activity will be happening,” said opposition leader Stephen McNeil said.
Meanwhile, a couple of Canadian newspapers also have weighed in on prospects of a spaceport at Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. The Cape Breton Post says that prospects for the spaceport receded after PlanetSpace failed to win a $170 million award from NASA’s COTS program.
The Halifax Chronicle Herald reports that PlanetSpace officials are hoping to get a piece of a $2.3 billion NASA procurement contract expected to be awarded later this year. However, the company believes prospects are good even if they don’t receive the funding.
Despite coming out on the losing end of NASA’s COTS competition, PlanetSpace is going ahead with plans to create a commercial spaceport on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.
The Chicago-based company has a two-pronged strategy: launching cargo and crews to the International Space Station from Florida and sending tourists on suborbital and point-to-point flights from Canada using its Silver Dart vehicle.
On Tuesday, the company learned that it lost out on a $171 million in NASA COTS funding to Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation. The COTS program is designed to encourage commercial development of crew and cargo vehicles for ISS.
“We will continue with the Silver Dart for point-to-point travel and space tourism,” PlanetSpace chairman Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria said.
For more details, see the stories here and here.
Canada’s National Post reports that Cape Breton could become a future gateway for space tourists, possibly with the help of NASA funding.
PlanetSpace, a Chicago company that is backing the Canadian spaceport, is one of several companies that are bidding for a $175 million in NASA’s COTS program. The program funds projects to develop commercial vehicles that can fly crews and cargo to the International Space Station.
NASA plans to make an announcement on the COTS program on February 19.
