COTS Award Announcement Thread

[Go ARCTUS]

Congratulations to Antonio and the rest of the Orbital team and best of luck with Taurus II and their COTS demo mission.

[antonioe]

edkyle99 - 19/2/2008 4:03 PM  As for the Ukrainian tanks, Russian rocket engines, and European cargo carrier, well it is the INTERNATIONAL Space Station after all. Cygnus, boosted by an upper stage built by a Utah company, guided by U.S. avionics (presumably), and propelled by Japanese (probably) thrusters, will be deftly captured by a Canadian robot arm. - Ed Kyle

You forgot: and we will be talking with controllers from TEXAS during the mission!!! :laugh:

[meiza]

Isn't ATV:s pressure shell Alenia MPLM derived too?

[antonioe]

marsavian - 19/2/2008 4:04 PM Congrats to antonioe, aero and Orbital and looks like cheap US medium lift capability is going to be preserved which probably swung it for you. Does this now mean that aero will stop whingeing about SpaceX's easy money ?

Joe stop whining???!!!  You may as well ask for a reduction in the value of the universal gravitational constant to make space launch more affordable!!!

[antonioe]

meiza - 19/2/2008 5:27 PM Isn't ATV:s pressure shell Alenia MPLM derived too?

You may be correct, but I'm not sure; anybody from Alenia in this thread?

[jongoff]

I'd like to add my congratulations to Antonio and his team.  It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out.

~Jon

[Jim]

HoustonG - 19/2/2008  5:55 PM

1.  3 COTS awards so far to supposedly provide crew/cargo delivery to the ISS.  

2.  Yet all involve developing new launch vehicles when there are already excellent existing alternatives.

3.   Why do they continue to ignore proposals that give them what they DO require (orbital vehicles with rendevous/docking capability) on existing launchers?  Both SpaceHab and Loral had such plans.  

4.  I think NASA is really just interested in undercutting current commercial launchers, or taking riskier ventures to increase the chance for failure.  Take your pick.

1.  That is NOT the intent of COTS I per
http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esmd/ccc/

"COTS is an effort by NASA to stimulate, and then take advantage of, a robust commercial market for spaceflight services."

2.  Incorrect.  There aren't alternatives

3.  Because if they were really serious about ISS resupply, then ATV and HTV on EELV would be funded

4.   Incorrect, see #1

[Jim]

antonioe - 19/2/2008  6:33 PM

meiza - 19/2/2008 5:27 PM Isn't ATV:s pressure shell Alenia MPLM derived too?

You may be correct, but I'm not sure; anybody from Alenia in this thread?

It is

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/ATV/ESAUHQ0VMOC_0.html

[Lampyridae]

HoustonG - 20/2/2008  7:55 AM

3 COTS awards so far to supposedly provide crew/cargo delivery to the ISS.  Yet all involve developing new launch vehicles when there are already excellent existing alternatives.  Why do they continue to ignore proposals that give them what they DO require (orbital vehicles with rendevous/docking capability) on existing launchers?  Both SpaceHab and Loral had such plans.  I think NASA is really just interested in undercutting current commercial launchers, or taking riskier ventures to increase the chance for failure.  Take your pick.

Well, good on NASA for doing that. Competition and innovation is the route to lower prices. And these delivery vehicles can still be delivered on other LVs if something goes desperately wrong.

[A_M_Swallow]

Chris Bergin - 19/2/2008  9:09 PM

Just the one...that's surprising. Boeing really are a shock in the respect of not getting in. Lots of noises were coming out of Boeingland of late.

Congratulations to Orbital.

Is Boeing still eligible for an unfunded COTS Agreement?

[marsavian]

antonioe - 19/2/2008  5:32 PM

marsavian - 19/2/2008 4:04 PM Congrats to antonioe, aero and Orbital and looks like cheap US medium lift capability is going to be preserved which probably swung it for you. Does this now mean that aero will stop whingeing about SpaceX's easy money ?

Joe stop whining???!!!  You may as well ask for a reduction in the value of the universal gravitational constant to make space launch more affordable!!!

Hehe.

It was obvious from your passionate postings here that this meant a lot to you and no-one can dispute that you already have the money you need on your side of the deal. My biggest concern with Taurus II are the first stage engines, what will you do if the supply runs out due to either problems on the Russian side or just due to heavy utilisation ? What's Plan B ? Also I noticed that return capability is now part of Cygnus although that wasn't part of your bid, who's going to be doing that and how will it be done ?

[Lampyridae]

antonioe - 20/2/2008  8:33 AM

meiza - 19/2/2008 5:27 PM Isn't ATV:s pressure shell Alenia MPLM derived too?

You may be correct, but I'm not sure; anybody from Alenia in this thread?

carmelo and marcozambi seem to have links to Alenia, but I haven't seen anybody else on NSF from the land of pasta and fast cars.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=2925&posts=136&start=1

Oh, and congrats to you guys at Orbital! I was rooting for you! :laugh:

[Jim]

marsavian - 19/2/2008  7:22 PM
My biggest concern with Taurus II are the first stage engines, what will you do if the supply runs out due to either problems on the Russian side or just due to heavy utilisation ? What's Plan B

Aerojet will build them

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=11604&posts=66&start=1

[Rocket Girl]

WhooHooo Yipeeeeee!!!!!!

Congratulations Orbital

[hop]

Congrats to orbital and antonioe.

One thing caught my eye in the orbital PR:

The Cygnus spacecraft to be launched aboard the Taurus II rocket will be capable of delivering up to 2,300 kg of cargo to the ISS and will be able to return 1,200 kg of cargo from the ISS to Earth.

Very interesting

Re the comments about the number of NK-33 engines, here's a quote from the anonioe q and a thread http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=3911&start=391

But we have a few years to get ready for that - if the 60 units or so run out in less than 10 years, we will be swimming in cash.  Reality is, it will take more than 10 years to go through 60 units (30 flights...) so we have plenty of time to get ready.

AFAIK the 60 units are actually in the US, there are more in Russia. Aerojet does have a license to build them if they want, and if orbital uses up 60 in a few years, there might be a good case for doing that.

[James (Lockheed)]

Well done Antonio.

SPACEHAB really were a shoe in at one point. Wonder where it all went wrong for them.

[abehnam]

I guess in the end it has become quite apparent that, as Jim has been saying all along, COTS I was never really about ISS resupply. Thats where it went wrong for Spacehab, because their proposal was geared toward purely ISS resupply, whereas Orbital was offering a new LV that has a business plan that is viable outside of ISS resupply.  

Perhaps Spacehab will fair better in COTS II but I find it very difficult for Spacehab to move into COTS II against the likes of Boeing, LM, ATK, Orbital, Space X, all which are either currently developing their proposals or have the finances to do so.  Again, it depends on what NASA is prioritizing.

But Spacehab should at least pat themselves on the back for making it through the downselect against the likes of Boeing, Orbital, and LM+ATK (Planetspace).  Deck was probably a little stacked against them.

Orbital really took a brilliant approach, showing that they both have the technical know-how but also the business know-how.  Their proposal was strong on all fronts and was coupled with a history of delivering on both their cost and time estimates (unlike LM or Boeing or other titans in the industry).

[antonioe]

hop - 19/2/2008 7:01 PM One thing caught my eye in the orbital PR:

The Cygnus spacecraft to be launched aboard the Taurus II rocket will be capable of delivering up to 2,300 kg of cargo to the ISS and will be able to return 1,200 kg of cargo from the ISS to Earth.

Actually, the correct phrasing would have been "up to 2,300 kg of cargo to the ISS or lift and return 1,200 kg of cargo".  The Service Module can be attached to a Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM), or an Unpressurized Cargo Module (UCM) or a Return Cargo Module (RCM).  At this time, we are NOT committing the funding required to develop, qualify and build an RCM, even if it is a very crude thing, indeed: a passive offset-cg, low (0.3) L/D truncated cone with active roll control.  Same passive CBM as the PCM, about 5m3 of volume.  Same cost per flight (approx) as a PCM flight, but about half the payload!!!  So you only order one if you really, really need return cargo... 

Here's a couple of pictures for your enjoyment:  first, a sketch of ISS with an SM/PCM attached to the nadir CBM, and two SM/UCM combos attached to two of the S3 truss CAS sites (I hope I have the nomenclature straight: I'm not an ISS person myself - it's wherever the ELC's are supposed to attach; as a matter of fact, the SM/UCM combo looks to ISS very much like an ELC from the standpoints of mass, structural response, shading, power, etc. Also, like an ELC, we can set the SM to "low power self-powered standby" and stay attached to ISS for as long as it takes to "harvest" the ORU's attached to it.)

The second picture is a very, very rought sketch of an SM/RCM combo.  We've borrowed a lot of the basic design, trajectory analysis, etc. from our 2004 STAS work, where we - horror of horrors! - proposed an Apollo-type capsule for CEV.

[jiggawo]

abehnam::

"Orbital really took a brilliant approach, showing that they both have the technical know-how but also the business know-how. Their proposal was strong on all fronts and was coupled with a history of delivering on both their cost and time estimates (unlike LM or Boeing or other titans in the industry)."

"delivering on both their cost and time estimates"??

Orbital blew threw $200+ million and 4+ years on X-34, and never flew a thing. Now they want to make an all-new DeltaII-class launcher, new launch facility, new test facilities, plus an autonomous cargo spacecraft, for $170M and <3 years. And they want to do this all while subcontracting with "porky" suppliers like ATK, Aerojet and Alenia?
I'm not holding my breath.

[kevin-rf]

Hats off Antonio and all the people at Orbital.

So Antonio, have you already volunteered and started training for your next job, Manned RCM commander?

Job well done, you fill the Delta II hole and get to go to ISS to boot.