NASA CRS2 Contract Award Announcement - Jan 14, 2016

[yg1968]

6 more CRS2 missions for SpaceX, 6 more for NG. Dream Chaser doesn't get any extra missions.

NASA has ordered 12 additional missions under its Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contracts to ensure continuous science and cargo delivery for the agency and its international partners to the International Space Station.

The 12 additional missions ordered – six each to Northrop Grumman and SpaceX – will provide resupply services to the station through 2026.

In 2016, NASA awarded three American companies CRS-2 contracts to resupply the International Space Station so crew members can continue to conduct science research and technology development that benefits people on Earth and supports human missions to the Moon and Mars.

While the maximum potential value of all contracts is $14 billion, NASA orders missions as needed, and the total prices paid under the contract will depend on which mission types are ordered.

On Oct. 16, 2020, NASA ordered two additional missions from Northrop Grumman, and three additional missions from SpaceX beyond the minimum guaranteed.

With this action, a total of 32 missions have been ordered by the agency for cargo resupply missions under the CRS-2 contracts with 14 missions to Northrop Grumman, three missions to Sierra Nevada Corporation (now Sierra Space), and 15 missions to SpaceX.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-orders-additional-cargo-flights-to-space-station

[cpushack]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

[whitelancer64]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

Likely that'll be Vulcan.

[Svetoslav]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

Likely that'll be Vulcan.

However, Vulcan is needed for military missions. Can they speed up the production?

[whitelancer64]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

Likely that'll be Vulcan.

However, Vulcan is needed for military missions. Can they speed up the production?

Vulcan isn't only needed for military launches, and yes, ULA's factory is sized to produce up to 30 rocket cores per year.

[Athelstane]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

Likely that'll be Vulcan.

However, Vulcan is needed for military missions. Can they speed up the production?

ULA has said for years the Vulcan is capable of a launch rate of up to 20 flights per year. The ULA rocket factory is set up to produce up to 30 cores per year. "@torybruno: We’ve hit a record volume in our factory with 30 rockets in production."

That tweet was a few years ago, but it's not unreasonable to think there's some room between their current manifest and what they could launch (well, by 2024, at any rate).

[DanClemmensen]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

Likely that'll be Vulcan.

However, Vulcan is needed for military missions. Can they speed up the production?

ULA has said for years the Vulcan is capable of a launch rate of up to 20 flights per year. The ULA rocket factory is set up to produce up to 30 cores per year. "@torybruno: We’ve hit a record volume in our factory with 30 rockets in production."

That tweet was a few years ago, but it's not unreasonable to think there's some room between their current manifest and what they could launch (well, by 2024, at any rate).

Each Vulcan booster will use two Blue Origin BE-4 engines. ULA has not received any production BE-4s yet. I seem to recall that BO will be able to produce about 30 engines per year, but I cannot find the reference. Vulcan is not the only customer for BE-4: new Glenn will also use them. All of this implies that BE-4 availability will be a bigger bottleneck than producing the rest of Vulcan.

[whitelancer64]

Now NG just needs to come up with 6 more rockets

Likely that'll be Vulcan.

However, Vulcan is needed for military missions. Can they speed up the production?

ULA has said for years the Vulcan is capable of a launch rate of up to 20 flights per year. The ULA rocket factory is set up to produce up to 30 cores per year. "@torybruno: We’ve hit a record volume in our factory with 30 rockets in production."

That tweet was a few years ago, but it's not unreasonable to think there's some room between their current manifest and what they could launch (well, by 2024, at any rate).

Each Vulcan booster will use two Blue Origin BE-4 engines. ULA has not received any production BE-4s yet. I seem to recall that BO will be able to produce about 30 engines per year, but I cannot find the reference. Vulcan is not the only customer for BE-4: new Glenn will also use them. All of this implies that BE-4 availability will be a bigger bottleneck than producing the rest of Vulcan.

In February 2020, Blue Origin opened a huge (400,000 square feet) BE-4 and BE-3U production facility in Huntsville, Alabama. BE-4 production was supposed to start in mid year 2020, but, in part, COVID, in part, development delays of BE-4, put a damper on those plans.

SpaceNews article on the factory opening says "Ultimately the factory will be able to produce 42 engines a year, split roughly evenly between the BE-4 and the BE-3U engine that will power the upper stage of New Glenn. The company expects to take two to three years to reach that production rate."

https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-opens-rocket-engine-factory/

[DanClemmensen]

In February 2020, Blue Origin opened a huge (400,000 square feet) BE-4 and BE-3U production facility in Huntsville, Alabama. BE-4 production was supposed to start in mid year 2020, but, in part, COVID, in part, development delays of BE-4, put a damper on those plans.

SpaceNews article on the factory opening says "Ultimately the factory will be able to produce 42 engines a year, split roughly evenly between the BE-4 and the BE-3U engine that will power the upper stage of New Glenn. The company expects to take two to three years to reach that production rate."

https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-opens-rocket-engine-factory/

EDIT: ramp rate.
OK, eventual BE-4 production of about 21 engines/yr, which would be enough for 10.5 Vulcans/yr if no BE-4 are allocated for New Glenn, and the article does not seem to speculate on the ramp-up rate taking "two to three years" to reach that rate, but we don't know when this ramp-up will start. Each New Glenn needs seven BE-4 engines.

ULA has only the 24 remaining Atlas V and 3 remaining Delta IV heavies in inventory and all are already assigned to launches (none for Cygnus), and Vulcan is their only new rocket. I hope NG has a plan for Cygnus/CRS2. There is still a CRS2 contract for 6(?) Dream Chasers, but Dream Chaser is supposed to fly on Vulcan, so that doesn't solve the problem.

[Ronsmytheiii]

All this being said, I wouldnt be surprised if NG does some "horse trading" with existing Atlas V customers to get a flight or two before Vulcan is ready. I would think they will need a new launcher NET August 2023?

[DanClemmensen]

All this being said, I wouldnt be surprised if NG does some "horse trading" with existing Atlas V customers to get a flight or two before Vulcan is ready. I would think they will need a new launcher NET August 2023?

Yep, NASA mentions the possible use of some of the nine Atlas Vs that are currently allocated for Kuiper. I did not think Kuiper would be interested in releasing them, but to the extent that Kuiper has a relationship with Blue Origin, I guess it makes sense, since the delay of BO's BE-4 is the bottleneck for delivery of Vulcan. My own guess prior to this NASA statement was that one or more of the six Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner would be used, on the grounds that ISS must continue to function or Starliner has no purpose. I just hope that NASA does not get charged for any of this.  Note: I have no inside information at all: this is just my inferences from info that I saw here on NSF.

[Zed_Noir]

All this being said, I wouldnt be surprised if NG does some "horse trading" with existing Atlas V customers to get a flight or two before Vulcan is ready. I would think they will need a new launcher NET August 2023?

Yep, NASA mentions the possible use of some of the nine Atlas Vs that are currently allocated for Kuiper. I did not think Kuiper would be interested in releasing them, but to the extent that Kuiper has a relationship with Blue Origin, I guess it makes sense, since the delay of BO's BE-4 is the bottleneck for delivery of Vulcan. My own guess prior to this NASA statement was that one or more of the six Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner would be used, on the grounds that ISS must continue to function or Starliner has no purpose. I just hope that NASA does not get charged for any of this.  Note: I have no inside information at all: this is just my inferences from info that I saw here on NSF.

Sigh. Will mention the obvious option with the folks from Hawthorne as a stop gap until the BE-4s and therefore the Vulcan Centaur come online.

Really don't see Boeing or the Kuiper Project giving up their Atlas V rides.

In Boeing's case that means getting on the queue of Vulcan Centaur launches after more development to fly on said new vehicle for a very limited number of missions.

Kuiper Project needs the Atlas V to get their comsats up without having to knock on the door of the folks from Hawthorne in order to meet the FCC deadline for deploying their LEO Constellation. Hell will freeze over before that happens, IMHO.

[MattMason]

All this being said, I wouldnt be surprised if NG does some "horse trading" with existing Atlas V customers to get a flight or two before Vulcan is ready. I would think they will need a new launcher NET August 2023?

Yep, NASA mentions the possible use of some of the nine Atlas Vs that are currently allocated for Kuiper. I did not think Kuiper would be interested in releasing them, but to the extent that Kuiper has a relationship with Blue Origin, I guess it makes sense, since the delay of BO's BE-4 is the bottleneck for delivery of Vulcan. My own guess prior to this NASA statement was that one or more of the six Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner would be used, on the grounds that ISS must continue to function or Starliner has no purpose. I just hope that NASA does not get charged for any of this.  Note: I have no inside information at all: this is just my inferences from info that I saw here on NSF.

Sigh. Will mention the obvious option with the folks from Hawthorne as a stop gap until the BE-4s and therefore the Vulcan Centaur come online.

Really don't see Boeing or the Kuiper Project giving up their Atlas V rides.

In Boeing's case that means getting on the queue of Vulcan Centaur launches after more development to fly on said new vehicle for a very limited number of missions.

Kuiper Project needs the Atlas V to get their comsats up without having to knock on the door of the folks from Hawthorne in order to meet the FCC deadline for deploying their LEO Constellation. Hell will freeze over before that happens, IMHO.

Starliner atop an Falcon 9? After the OneWeb/SpaceX launch provider announcement, nothing surprises me anymore.

Besides, isn't one of the Commercial Crew spacecraft goals (as was for CRS) was for spacecraft to be launch vehicle agnostic? Cygnus riding atop two Atlas Vs while Antares was grounded was a good example for that.

The masses of both Crew Dragon and Starliner are around 12,000 pounds, and both use pusher launch escapes. Would need an interstage to mate what seems to be a wider vehicle. Of course, rockets/spacecraft aren't LEGO and getting Boeing GSE and telemetry meshing with SpaceX launch control would be...something I want to be a fly on the wall to watch develop.

Haven't seen any information on if this adaptation has been planned out already since Starliner isn't flying just yet.

[DanClemmensen]

All this being said, I wouldnt be surprised if NG does some "horse trading" with existing Atlas V customers to get a flight or two before Vulcan is ready. I would think they will need a new launcher NET August 2023?

Yep, NASA mentions the possible use of some of the nine Atlas Vs that are currently allocated for Kuiper. I did not think Kuiper would be interested in releasing them, but to the extent that Kuiper has a relationship with Blue Origin, I guess it makes sense, since the delay of BO's BE-4 is the bottleneck for delivery of Vulcan. My own guess prior to this NASA statement was that one or more of the six Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner would be used, on the grounds that ISS must continue to function or Starliner has no purpose. I just hope that NASA does not get charged for any of this.  Note: I have no inside information at all: this is just my inferences from info that I saw here on NSF.

Really don't see Boeing or the Kuiper Project giving up their Atlas V rides.

In Boeing's case that means getting on the queue of Vulcan Centaur launches after more development to fly on said new vehicle for a very limited number of missions.

(Can a ULA person please check this?) I am probably missing something, but I think there are only six Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner.  However there are a total of eight committed Starliner flights: OFT, CFT, and Starliner-1 thru Starliner-6. Therefore, even if Boeing keeps all six Atlas Vs, they will still need to crew-certify Starliner on Vulcan for the last two flights. This is also consistent with their statements many years ago that Starliner would fly on Vulcan. This means that giving up the Altas V for Starliner-6 will not incur any new cost and since Vulcan is supposed to be cheaper than Atlas V, it actually saves them money out there in 2026.

[Jim]

I just hope that NASA does not get charged for any of this. 

it doesn't

[kdhilliard]

I am probably missing something, but I think there are only six Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner. ...

YouTube: NASA SpaceX Crew 3 Leaders Discuss Mission Overview - October 6, 2021: 40m32s

Joey Roulette, NYT: I just was wondering if all of Boeing's PCM missions will fly on Atlas V rockets.

Steve Stich, Commercial Crew Program manager, NASA: To date, Boeing has purchased enough of the Atlas V vehicles to fly out their manifest.  And so that's the current plan with Boeing is for the PCMs that they have on contract, including also OFT-2 and CFT, to fly on the Atlas.  And we work hand-in-hand with Boeing and ULA as they start to cut in the Vulcan vehicle, and we look at the mods to the launch pad and so forth just to make sure as the plan it to fly this mixed fleet for a while.

But woods170 suggests they have an extra Atlas V reserved in case it's needed.

Per a NASA source: "Enough" in this sense includes room for an additional calamity.

[thespacecow]

NASA extends ISS cargo contracts through 2030

NASA did, as part of the March 2023 announcement, seek information from companies who believed that they could carry out cargo transportation to the station. The agency said it received three responses, but concluded none of the companies could meet its requirements.

One response came from Gravitics, a company developing modules for future commercial space stations, including one called StarMax. “The response does not provide a description of an end-to-end cargo service capable of reaching, attaching, and departing the ISS, but suggests a next generation launch vehicle could get it to low Earth orbit,” NASA’s document states of StarMax. Other details about its concept are redacted in the public document.

A second response came from The Exploration Company, a European startup developing cargo return spacecraft. NASA noted that the company does not qualify as a “United States commercial provider” under federal law. “The 20-month-old company based in Munich, Germany does not meet this nor the other restrictions in the CRS-2 contract regarding certain foreign purchases and export control,” NASA stated. Other details about its proposal are redacted.

A third response came from GEPA Logistics, which NASA described as a British company that handles land, sea and air cargo transportation but does not appear to have any experience in space transportation. “GEPA Logistics’ capabilities statement lacked any description of a spaceflight capability that would provide end-to-end cargo services with low earth orbit capability to the ISS,” NASA stated.

[thespacecow]

The SpaceNews article also tried to qualify how much money has been spent on the existing contracts:

NASA has obligated $2.7 billion to Northrop Grumman, $1.4 billion to Sierra Space and $2.8 billion to SpaceX to date, for a total of $6.9 billion.

But I believe obligated merely reserve the money for payment, outlayed is the actual payment. Based on usaspending.gov data, the outlayed amounts are:

Northrop Grumman: $1.9B

Sierra Space: $702M

SpaceX: $2B

NG has completed 9 missions (NG-12 to NG-20) with one additional mission on orbit (NG-21), SpaceX completed 10 missions (SpX-21 to SpX-30) with one additional mission on orbit (SpX-31). So it seems each NG and SpX mission costs roughly the same, at ~$190M.

What's interesting is Sierra Space got $700M even though they haven't flown anything, it seems NASA is paying some significant amount for NRE even though this is just service contract.

[yg1968]

The SpaceNews article also tried to qualify how much money has been spent on the existing contracts:

NASA has obligated $2.7 billion to Northrop Grumman, $1.4 billion to Sierra Space and $2.8 billion to SpaceX to date, for a total of $6.9 billion.

But I believe obligated merely reserve the money for payment, outlayed is the actual payment. Based on usaspending.gov data, the outlayed amounts are:

Northrop Grumman: $1.9B

Sierra Space: $702M

SpaceX: $2B

NG has completed 9 missions (NG-12 to NG-20) with one additional mission on orbit (NG-21), SpaceX completed 10 missions (SpX-21 to SpX-30) with one additional mission on orbit (SpX-31). So it seems each NG and SpX mission costs roughly the same, at ~$190M.

What's interesting is Sierra Space got $700M even though they haven't flown anything, it seems NASA is paying some significant amount for NRE even though this is just service contract.

From what I recall, there is a number of pre-flight milestones payments for a mission, even under a services contract.