Aviation - NASA Selects Seven Firms To Provide Near-Space Payload Delivery Systems

Cape Canaveral, August 10, 2011: NASA has selected seven companies to integrate and fly technology payloads on commercial suborbital reusable platforms that carry payloads near the boundary of space.

As part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, each successful vendor will receive an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. These two-year contracts, worth a combined total of $10 million, will allow NASA to draw from a pool of commercial space companies to deliver payload integration and flight services. The flights will carry a variety of payloads to help meet the agency's research and technology needs.

"Through this catalog approach, NASA is moving toward the goal of making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide range of engineers, scientists and technologists," said NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The government's ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA's future missions in space."

The selected companies are:

Armadillo Aerospace, Heath, TX.
Near Space Corp., Tillamook, OR.
Masten Space Systems, Mojave, CA.
Up Aerospace Inc., Highlands Ranch, CO.
Virgin Galactic, Mojave, CA.
Whittinghill Aerospace LLC, Camarillo, CA.
XCOR, Mojave, CA.

NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist is charged with maturing crosscutting technologies to flight readiness status for future space missions. Through these indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts, NASA intends to provide frequent flight opportunities for payloads on suborbital platforms.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation said in a news release it is pleased to congratulate its member companies Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace selected in the latest round of contract awards Tuesday to integrate and fly payloads to space as part of NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program.

Commercial reusable suborbital spacecraft – such as (Top R-L) Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx, (Bottom R-L) Masten Space Systems’ Xaero, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and (not pictured) Armadillo Aerospace’s modular vehicles – provide the nation with a new low-cost capability to carry payloads and people to the edge of space. NASA is taking advantage of these capabilities with its CRuSR program. Following the Space Shuttle’s retirement, commercial suborbital vehicles are expected to be the next American flights of people into space from US soil.

Admiral Craig Steidle, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, stated, “Today’s (Tuesday's) announcement illustrates the future of NASA-industry partnerships in order to offer R&D, science, and education flight opportunities.”

According to NASA, “each successful vendor will receive an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. These two-year contracts, worth a combined total of $10 million, will allow NASA to draw from a pool of commercial space companies to deliver payload integration and flight services. The flights will carry a variety of payloads to help meet the agency's research and technology needs.” A total of seven firms were selected.

Admiral Steidle added, “The Commercial Spaceflight Federation applauds the leadership of Dr. Bobby Braun, NASA’s Chief Technologist. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a strong advocate for the CRuSR program and for Space Technology.”

NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun stated in the NASA press release, “NASA is moving toward the goal of making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide range of engineers, scientists and technologists. The government's ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA's future missions in space.”

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Executive Director John Gedmark noted, “This is a big day for commercial space. Just as 1920s air mail purchases helped jumpstart the airline industry, we expect that NASA’s purchases of flights on commercial suborbital vehicles will help accelerate this new industry. Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and educators have attended CSF workshops on the topic of using commercial suborbital vehicles, and we are thrilled to see that the R&D community will now be able to get rides to space.”