SpaceX and Orbital Share Cargo Contract

SpaceX will share a multi-billion-dollar NASA contract with a Virginia company to carry cargo to the International Space Station.

At Cape Canaveral the California company now is assembling the nine-engined rocket that might do the job if it flies successfully this spring. This contract by 2011 could result in the creation of about 1,000 local jobs by the streamlined rocket company founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, who created and sold PayPal.

Under terms of the contract, cargo flights would begin in 2010, just as the space shuttle stops flying. Cargo carriers under development by the Japanese and the Europeans could not keep the space station fully supplied. And the U.S. is reluctant to rely on the Russian Progress cargo carriers.

"We have a real need for this cargo capability," Associate NASA Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier said.

Gerstenmaier added that the station could not function effectively without critical cargo planned for these shipments.

"We would end up cutting back on our research and maybe the crew," he said.
The two contracts went to Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., and to SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif. NASA has ordered eight flights valued at about $1.9 billion from Orbital and 12 flights valued at about $1.6 billion from SpaceX.

Orbital would launch from Wallops Island, Va., and SpaceX would launch from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral.

If one of the companies fails, NASA could shift cargo flights to the successful company or solicit other companies to bid for cargo delivery.
NASA rejected the bid of PlanetSpace Inc., a joint effort of ATK and Lockheed Martin.

The contracts run Jan. 1, 2009 through Dec. 31, 2016 and call for the delivery of at least of 20 metric tons of cargo to the space station. Each company will receive payments as they meet development milestones. The maximum potential value of each contract is about $3.1 billion.

However, neither company has a track record of lifting heavy cargo to low-Earth orbit, and neither company has performed delicate rendezvous operations at 17,000 mph, the speed of an orbiting spacecraft. Orbital builds and launches medium-sized satellites, while SpaceX successfully orbited its fourth Falcon 1 rocket in September, after three launch failures.

"We have a true need for this now," said Gerstenmaier. "We didn’t really have much choice.

"We needed to take companies we thought had a good chance of making it," he added. "There’s really not a backup plan for these vehicles."

In 2006, SpaceX was awarded up to $278 million under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) competition. SpaceX will conduct the first COTS flight of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft in 2009. On a final COTS flight in 2010, SpaceX will berth the Dragon with the station.

"This is a tremendous responsibility, given the swiftly approaching retirement of the space shuttle and the significant future needs of the space station," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said.

Also a COTS recipient, Orbital will use it new Cygnus maneuvering space vehicle and the new Taurus II medium-lift launch vehicle, now under development. Cygnus is a service module, containing the vehicle’s propulsion, power systems and avionics, and one of three cargo modules.

"The (Commercial Resupply Services) program will serve as a showcase for the types of commercial services U.S. space companies can offer NASA, allowing the space agency to devote a greater proportion of its resources for the challenges of human spaceflight, deep space exploration and scientific investigations of our planet and the universe in which we live," said David W. Thompson, Orbital’s chairman.