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NASA opens new door for private-sector space
Agency is in the market
for space station cargo services;
entrepreneurs want to provide
crew-to-orbit vehicle as well
 Mark Maxwell / Transformational Space In this artist's conception, the t/Space Crew Transfer Vehicle, or CXV, approaches the international space station. NASA's administrator says he's willing to consider contracting out space station resupply services, and eventually crew transport services as well. |
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WASHINGTON - NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said the U.S. space agency will call for proposals this year from companies interested in delivering cargo to the international space station.
NASA announced last year that it intended to buy space station resupply services from the private sector but never got around to issuing a formal request for proposals. Griffin, who was sworn in as NASA administrator in April, has since transferred responsibility for managing the resupply procurement from the agency's Space Operations Mission Directorate to the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, which was created last year to oversee the acquisition of the United States' next passenger-carrying spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
Speaking May 18 at the "Space at the Crossroads" conference here, Griffin said a request for proposals for space station cargo delivery would go out in late summer or early autumn.
NASA has not said how much money it plans to spend in the coming years on commercial space station resupply services. NASA's 2005 budget includes $98 million for the effort, a sum that would cover little more than study contracts.
Established players and pioneers
The prospect of selling logistics services to NASA has attracted interest from established aerospace-industry players Boeing and Lockheed Martin and from much smaller companies, including Kirkland, Wash.-based Kistler Aerospace and Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Constellation Services Inc.
Griffin said he hopes NASA can buy resupply services commercially in the relatively near term from providers that have been lured into the market by the promise of NASA business.
"It is in our interest to sponsor commercial development in that area by providing the only market I have for the next few years, which is cargo delivery to the station," he said.
Griffin said NASA "can do commercial deals" by announcing the need for a service and then paying the providers who deliver.
"I am very serious about [space station] cargo," he said. "We are going to put out an unmistakably clear [request for proposals] that says 'if providers can deliver, we will buy.'"
Griffin said government will be "the provider of last resort" for routine services like cargo resupply.
"NASA exists to work at the frontier," he said. "Today the frontier should not be the delivery of 5 or 10 tons of cargo to the station."
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