NASA and the four companies it tapped to further develop a commercial space transportation industry expressed confidence recently that a market exists beyond the U.S. government for the crew-transport vehicles the firms are building.
Phil McAlister, acting director of commercial spaceflight development at the space agency, told reporters recently that the “benefits of this new approach”–for NASA to help U.S. commercial companies develop transportation systems for carrying crew to low-Earth orbit (LEO)–“are clear and compelling.”
Those benefits include ensuring U.S. astronauts are transported to the International Space Station on American-made spacecraft, allowing NASA to concentrate its limited financial resources on developing systems for exploring beyond LEO, and benefitting “the U.S. private industry by strengthening our industrial base, enhancing our capabilities in a new high-tech industry, and…(opening) up new markets for customers other than the U.S. government,” he said.
At the media event at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, McAlister cited an “ultimate goal” of having “commercial spaceflight (in) low-Earth orbit (that) is a robust, vibrant, profit-making commercial enterprise with many providers and a wide-range of private and public users.”
NASA announced April 18 it awarded four Space Act Agreements worth a combined $269.3 million to companies as part of the second round of its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) effort, or CCDev2. The firms are charged with advancing concepts for commercial crew space transportation systems, as well as maturing the design and development of launch vehicles and spacecraft for carrying up to seven people.
The space agency’s CCDev2 effort is intended to help U.S. commercial companies develop transportation systems as NASA grapples with tight budgets and the retirement of its space shuttle this year. The four firms are using some of their own money to build their systems, which they can sell to customers beyond NASA.
Rob Meyerson, the program manager for the crew transportation system Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin is developing, said he “absolutely” sees a market for more than one or two commercial companies building crew-transportation vehicles.
For “customers in the future, safety is the absolute, (and) after that it’s going to be price, and customers will be picking based on price,” said Meyerson, whose company received a $22 million CCDev2 contract, “And I believe there’s a market for multiple suppliers launching people into orbit as long as the price is competitive.”
Mark Sirangelo, program manager at Sierra Nevada in Louisville, Colo., which snagged an $80 million CCDev2 contract, said his company is “putting a lot of money behind” its Dream Chaser shuttle.
“One of the reasons we do is that NASA is just but one customer, and taking people to space is but one activity from our vehicle,” Sirangelo said. “We’re designing a vehicle that is multiple purpose, because we think there are other things we can do in space….And we’re very confident that those other markets, in addition to the NASA markets, will be able to support this program for many years.”
The largest of the four CCDev2 contracts was awarded to Boeing [BA], which snagged a $92.3 million deal to continue work on its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft.
John Elbon, the vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Crew Programs in Houston, said the existence of a burgeoning space-tourism industry proves a market exists beyond NASA for commercial providers.
Elbon pointed to Bigelow Aerospace, a company that is developing commercial space stations. Boeing also plans to supply the CST-1000 to Bigelow Aerospace.
“We took Mr. Bigelow to the Farnborough Air Show (near London) last year and had an opportunity to meet with several of his potential clients,” Elbon said. They “are primarily countries who want to have a space program but can’t afford an infrastructure of their own dedicated to space programs, but they do have funds available to rent a piece of Bigelow’s space complex for some number of weeks or years, and have their own astronauts and do their own science.”
“Quantifying that market and basing a business case on it is difficult,” he acknowledged. “So we’re closing our business case internally, assuming that the only thing that materializes is this NASA business, and then this other business adjacent to that would be a significant potential upside as it materializes.”
Garrett Reisman, program manager for SpaceX‘s Dragon spacecraft, for his part said “competition’s a good thing,” as is having multiple vehicles that can provide access to space. The Hawthorne, Calif., firm has a $75 million CCDev2 contract.
NASA’s controversial new effort to help launch a commercial space transportation industry comes after Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to dismantle much of Constellation, an underfunded manned-spaceflight program intended to build systems to carry astronauts to the moon.
NASA awarded the first round of CCDev contracts, worth $50 million, last year. The contracts will run through mid-2012, after which the space agency is expected to launch another contest for building a flight system.