No one I’ve spoken with is going on record yet, but I’m hearing from reliable sources that NASA made the first round of cuts for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contracts with phone calls this morning.
Out of an estimated 24 companies that applied for NASA’s new program to supply the International Space Station with crew and supplies, an unofficial six have made the first round of cuts, my sources tell me. Companies reported to have made this cut are:
Andrews Space
Rocketplane Kistler
SpaceDev
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)
SpaceHab
Transformational Space Corporation (t/Space)
No money will be awarded until NASA makes the final round of cuts, possibly in June or July, when one to three of these companies will get money out of a $500 million pot NASA has allocated to servicing Space Station with commercial spaceships.
My own feeling is that COTS is NASA’s best hope for maintaining its manned presence in space. NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz spaceships for space access since space shuttle Columbia broke up on reentry in February 2003.
NASA has flown only one shuttle flight since then, its much heralded “return to flight” mission last July. Even after $1 billion in fixes, that flight was marred by the same flying external tank foam problem that doomed Columbia, and the shuttles were again indefinitely grounded.
Meanwhile, a cadre of small, nimble companies has been making steady progress toward comparatively inexpensive commercial access to space.
Stay tuned.
–UPDATE at 5:35 ET–
The sixth and final company on my list, SpaceDev, has fallen into place.
–UPDATE at 7:21–
Just heard from Chuck Lauer, new business development manager at Rocketplane. He confirms that Rocketplane Kistler is a finalist for COTS. He says he’s very encouraged by the fact that Big Aerospace stayed off the list; it shows that “NASA has really seen the value of New Space.” Referring to the big, multibillion dollar contracts to be awarded to major aerospace firms for building NASA’s new manned moon ships, he says that NASA should go further, and “take $500 million out of the Lockheed-Boeing welfare fund” to fund more entrepreneurial space efforts.
Great Work!
Thanks!
Thanks, Michael, for the update. (I think you scooped everyone else on the story, too.)
The fact the large aerospace companies weren’t selected means NASA isn’t serious about funding this.
They may release some little 2M awards and maybe
a 10M phase B to gain political cover, but,
this program will be unlikely to spend $500 million
Given NASA’s past performance with entreprenurial space efforts, I fear you may be right, especially if one of the COTS players gains traction before the CEV can get off the ground (very likely, I think). In that case, the COTS vehicle will be in direct competition with the CEV, and I don’t know that the big guys will stand for that.
Still, NASA’s manned space program is in deep doo-doo, spending billions going nowhere. Real change is needed, and for that reason I remain optimistic. In fact, I believe that New Space will succeed with or without NASA’s help. Faced with a chioce between buying rides from the Russians and an American New Space company, NASA will have no choice but to get on board, whether or not it funds initial development efforts.
Actually, the abscence of the Boeings and Lockheeds is a good thing. It allows for a clean allocation of resources. Those larger companies may not have or want to dedicate resources to both COTS and CEV development. The two programs really have different goals. The CEV vehicle can’t meet all the COTS delivery needs. Mixing human transport with cargo transport means reduced cargo delivery rates to ISS. In order to efficiently and economically meet both the CEV and the COTS goals, you would end up with two different vehicles anyway. Developing them both at the same time at one company would be a resource drain, potentially leading to an inferior design. Not participating in COTS allows them to focus on CEV. It is only logical that the big companies would go for CEV instead of COTS because, the COTS contracts will likely be fixed-priced whereas CEV will be cost-plus, meaning that the CEV program is the cash-cow that those big companies are used to.
1st story
COTS allocated to small companies
Small companies dont deliver
2010 NASA retires Shuttle
2011 no solution for ISS
ISS dies
End of the story
2nd story
COTS allocated to small companies
Small companies dont deliver
2010 NASA retires Shuttle
NASA has to buy Progress and ATVs
US money goes abroad