NASA has agreed to help support a pair of
private
spaceflight companies as they develop competing designs for vehicles that
could one day ferry astronauts and
cargo into orbit.
The U.S.
space agency signed Space Act agreements with Chicago-based PlanetSpace
Inc. and Reston, Virginia's Transformational
Space Corp. (t/Space), and will provide the two firms with requirements and
specifications for crew and cargo flights to the International Space
Station (ISS).
Unlike NASA's
Commercial
Orbital Transportation System (COTS) competition, the Space Act agreements
include no funding support, though the space agency will recognize each firm's
progress during vehicle development.
"It allows
us to go ahead and meet specific milestones and goals to reach our orbital
capabilities," PlanetSpace chairman Chirinjeev Kathurian told SPACE.com,
adding that the NASA agreement allows the firm to focus its efforts.
PlanetSpace's
planned orbital spacecraft, the Silver Dart,
is derived from the U.S. Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 (FDL-7)
experimental aircraft and designed to launch atop a NOVA booster based on
Russia's Soyuz rocket [image].
The vehicle could be fitted with docking hardware, cargo modules or crew
compartments based on their flight plan, PlanetSpace officials said, adding
that the first demonstration launch is targeted for December 2009 [image].
"I think it
will be probably be unmanned," Kathurian said of the first Silver Dart flight,
adding that crewed launches could follow in 2010 and 2011.
t/Space,
meanwhile, is designing an air-launched
spacecraft system for both crew and cargo trips to the ISS [image].
The firm was one of six
finalists for NASA's COTS competition to develop new launchers and
spacecraft for ISS-bound flights before the space agency split that $500
million purse between private spaceflight firms Space
Exploration Technologies and Rocketplane Kistler in August 2006 [image].
"It's
important that investors and potential stakeholders see that NASA values
t/Space as a potential supplier to the International Space Station," t/Space
president David Gump told SPACE.com of the new agreement. "We expect to
be able to do a crewed orbital flight by the close of 2010."
Alan Lindenmoyer,
manager of NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office at the Johnson Space
Center, said NASA's goal is to help facilitate access to low-Earth orbit. The
new Space Act agreements address just two of the some 21 proposals NASA received
from private firms during the COTS competition.
"There were
some excellent ideas there," Lindenmoyer said in a telephone interview. "It's
just that we didn't have enough money to fund all those studies."
NASA plans
to hold a second open competition around 2010 to determine whether to choose
service contracts with private firms to supply the ISS. The space agency's
current transport system to the ISS - NASA's three remaining space shuttles - is slated for retirement
in September 2010 once assembly of the space station is complete.
"I think it's
really good to see that these companies are still in the game," Lindenmoyer
said.
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