RPK out of COTS race

NASA ends agreement with Oklahoma firm trying to build a rocket to replace the shuttle. Illustration by RPK.


NASA ended a $207 million agreement with Rocketplane Kistler Thursday, losing $32.1 million in an effort to help a private company build a spacecraft to supply the International Space Station when the shuttle program ends in 2010.

The action leaves only SpaceX, owned and funded by Internet tycoon Elon Musk, in the race to build a private rocket for space travel.

RPK of Oklahoma City could not attract $500 million in private investment and simply ran out of money, failing to meet NASA's technical and financial milestones for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services project.

"Nearly all technical work was stopped by the end of July due to lack of funding," said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

RPK spent only $32.1 million, leaving NASA $174.7 million to invest with another company, Lindenmoyer said.

A request for new spacecraft proposals will go out Monday. Proposals will be due in 30 days and NASA hopes to make an agreement with another company by early next year.

NASA expects a five-year U.S. spaceflight gap while building its Ares spacecraft to replace the aging shuttle. During that time NASA will depend on Russia to supply the International Space Station, a weakness NASA administrator Mike Griffin has called "unseemly."

"We have a need when the shuttle retires in 2010 to acquire the service from domestic providers," said Lindenmoyer.

SpaceX intends to apply for the remaining COTS funding, said SpaceX media coordinator Roger G. Gilbertson.

"SpaceX intends to remain on track and to deliver COTS Falcon 9 hardware to Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008, for launch at the earliest opportunity," he added.

"We remain committed to demonstrating our ability to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and would welcome the opportunity to use the same human-rated Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft systems to demonstrate crew transportation services under an extended COTS program."

NASA also has unfunded COTS agreements with five other companies.