There was almost no questions from reporters... I tried to phone-in to ask a question but it didn't work.
To provide an incentive to any commercial provider who is successful in achieving CTS Certification, the Phase 2 contract will include, as options, a nominal number of crewed missions to the ISS following successful CTS Certification. NASA believes that having up to two contractors through Phase 2 would provide significant advantages for insuring a safe and affordable CTS through competition. The ultimate number of awards will be driven by technical maturity, funding availability, and mission needs.
CCP Strategy White Paper:http://commercialcrew.nasa.gov/document_file_get.cfm?docID=637QuoteTo provide an incentive to any commercial provider who is successful in achieving CTS Certification, the Phase 2 contract will include, as options, a nominal number of crewed missions to the ISS following successful CTS Certification. NASA believes that having up totwo contractors through Phase 2 would provide significant advantages for insuring a safe and affordable CTS through competition. The ultimate number of awards will be driven by technical maturity, funding availability, and mission needs.
To provide an incentive to any commercial provider who is successful in achieving CTS Certification, the Phase 2 contract will include, as options, a nominal number of crewed missions to the ISS following successful CTS Certification. NASA believes that having up totwo contractors through Phase 2 would provide significant advantages for insuring a safe and affordable CTS through competition. The ultimate number of awards will be driven by technical maturity, funding availability, and mission needs.
I also noticed that the "ISS Services Contract", which provides for missions every 6 months and is the long-term contract, is marked as "likely single award" in figure 2.
Phase I of certification will start on February 2013. Phase 2 of certification will include at least one ISS commercial crew flight. Phase I of the certification period will have 2 to 4 companies. Phase II will only have 1 or 2 companies. Not clear to me what happens to the CCiCap optional milestones period.
To provide an incentive to any commercial provider who is successful in achieving CTS Certification, the Phase 2 contractw ill include, as options, a nominal number of crewed missions to the ISS following successful CTS Certification.
Or to put it another way: After the Certification Products Contracts ("Phase 1") are completed, which run concurrently with CCiCap base period; which is a prerequisite to the Certification Contracts ("Phase 2"), which will run concurrently with CCiCap optional period, and which will overlap the ISS Services Contract. The latter is interesting given...QuoteTo provide an incentive to any commercial provider who is successful in achieving CTS Certification, the Phase 2 contractw ill include, as options, a nominal number of crewed missions to the ISS following successful CTS Certification....which could help maintain and extend competitive pressure through mid-2017 even if there is a down-select to one provider for the ISS Service Contract in early 2016.p.s. Thanks all for posting the notices and docs.
The elephant in the room is the cost of that if there are not any other customers or even a significant number of other customers.
Quote from: joek on 08/09/2012 05:34 amOr to put it another way: After the Certification Products Contracts ("Phase 1") are completed, which run concurrently with CCiCap base period; which is a prerequisite to the Certification Contracts ("Phase 2"), which will run concurrently with CCiCap optional period, and which will overlap the ISS Services Contract. The latter is interesting given...QuoteTo provide an incentive to any commercial provider who is successful in achieving CTS Certification, the Phase 2 contractw ill include, as options, a nominal number of crewed missions to the ISS following successful CTS Certification....which could help maintain and extend competitive pressure through mid-2017 even if there is a down-select to one provider for the ISS Service Contract in early 2016.p.s. Thanks all for posting the notices and docs.On this topic, it is not clear if the optional ISS missions under phase 2 of the certification period would carry NASA astronauts.
Quote from: AnalogMan on 08/08/2012 08:58 pmI also noticed that the "ISS Services Contract", which provides for missions every 6 months and is the long-term contract, is marked as "likely single award" in figure 2.I hadn't noticed that. I can't say that I like that. NASA has a lot of time to change their mind but I would prefer if they would have combined cargo and crew (giving each provider a better business case) instead of downselecting to only one commercial crew provider. If they don't want to combine both cargo and crew contract, they could first award the CRS-2 contracts prior to the CTS one(s). NASA is likely to get better prices for the CTS contract(s) from companies that also win a CRS-2 contract.
