Both companies were behind in their demo flights by a major margin. NASA needed to keep a closer eye on both of them. Rocketplane Kistler lost it's COTS contract for falling behind on their milestones but these other two did not. That is very interesting and how Orbital has gotten funds for CRS without having their demo flights. ( the first flight was for the launcher )
Yep. "Demonstrate before contract" was a bluff. The partners called.
So yes, Orbital gets to "bank" the cash, but they have to give it back if they mess up. In return, NASA gets the assurance that the hardware for those later missions has started down the production pipeline. Gerstenmaier says the resulting reduction in "programmatic risk" is quite valuable ... and he would know!
This is a bit of a revision of history. RK lost its SSA because it could not meet its funding requirement.
Note I don't know if Spacex got the same terms but I would would be equally unhappy if they did.
Launch vehicles are not built in a few days or even weeks.I expect that without staged CRS payments, they wouldn't have been able to start building much of the CRS hardware yet.And if they hadn't started yet, there would be no chance of meeting NASA's resupply requirement schedule. So NASA spends some money up front to get what they want, when they need it.
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 06/17/2013 07:15 pmHere's NASA scoring an own goal it seems:http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/06/nasa-told-slow-down-crs-payment-orbitals-cargo-runs/From the article"the company is on track to receive up to 70 percent of the funds associated with six of its eight CRS missions prior to having flown a demonstration flight.”What???They are going to bank 70% of the cash for 75% of their contract without delivering a single Kg of payload to the ISS?This is just wrong. AFAIK Antares is still in development. The actual delivery contract should not have started paying them until they actually started delivering stuff. The obvious question is are Spacex on these terms as well? Because they seem exceptionally generous by the standards of a commercial contract and NASA should not have signed it with either of them.
Here's NASA scoring an own goal it seems:http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/06/nasa-told-slow-down-crs-payment-orbitals-cargo-runs/
We have no idea what might have happened. In the rest of the world people deliver things on schedule and under budget, or they don't get paid. In the NASA (and DoD) world people know they'll get paid anyway, so they don't have any incentive to deliver any faster than is necessary to keep the money flowing.
Quote from: kkattula on 06/18/2013 09:28 amLaunch vehicles are not built in a few days or even weeks.I expect that without staged CRS payments, they wouldn't have been able to start building much of the CRS hardware yet.And if they hadn't started yet, there would be no chance of meeting NASA's resupply requirement schedule. So NASA spends some money up front to get what they want, when they need it.Alternate reality science fiction.We have no idea what might have happened. In the rest of the world people deliver things on schedule and under budget, or they don't get paid. In the NASA (and DoD) world people know they'll get paid anyway, so they don't have any incentive to deliver any faster than is necessary to keep the money flowing.
Quote from: QuantumG on 06/18/2013 10:05 amQuote from: kkattula on 06/18/2013 09:28 amLaunch vehicles are not built in a few days or even weeks.I expect that without staged CRS payments, they wouldn't have been able to start building much of the CRS hardware yet.And if they hadn't started yet, there would be no chance of meeting NASA's resupply requirement schedule. So NASA spends some money up front to get what they want, when they need it.Alternate reality science fiction.We have no idea what might have happened. In the rest of the world people deliver things on schedule and under budget, or they don't get paid. In the NASA (and DoD) world people know they'll get paid anyway, so they don't have any incentive to deliver any faster than is necessary to keep the money flowing. LOL. I think we all know who's living in an alternate reality. Milestone payments are commonplace in industry. That doesn't mean they don't have associated deadlines. When things fall behind, they usually get re-negotiated initially, not cancelled unless they miss multiple deadlines. Try building a house even.
That the government actually finances the bulk of the contract is the most efficient way, actually. US government debt rate if about 1% for a 5year obligation and about 0.15% for 1 year. I seriously doubt that OSC could borrow for less than 6%, and I suspect it's closer to 8%. But even at 5%, OSC would have to pass the final cost to the government anyways, thus, the US government would have to pay more.Besides, we don't know, but I guess (because of things that Antonio said) that most if not all of the simulations and validations of the whole system haven been already passed. Thus, is not an undemonstrated system. Lots and lots of ground validation and simulations have been made. And after the ATV, HTV and Dragon experience, NASA knows a lot about simulating a rendevouz mission. And since Cygnus uses the HTV comm subsystem and berth procedures, it's got some of the critical assets already demonstrated, ditto with the space hardware (which is based off the Starbus). In other words, NASA should be more confident now on Cygnus than on Dragon 3months before COTS 2/3.And they should balance the advanced money against the possibility of under utilization on ISS. If it's a 105B project, how much does each hour of science costs? My guess is that the cost of not being able to fully utilize the station is way more than the risk of Antares/Cygnus complete failure. But that takes someone that actually worries about the utility of the station and not about penny pinching for the sake of it.
QuantumG, I don't think you're being realistic. Name this magic industry that has the same sort of challenges but always delivers on time or budget.
A wild guess, Antares has a couple of congressmen in their pockets ?
The actual delivery contract should not have started paying them until they actually started delivering stuff.
Or, to put it another way, one is likely to be much more concerned with cost (and schedule, because it's often the same thing) when one is spending one's own money.