NASA CRS2 Contract Award Announcement - Jan 14, 2016

[CorvusCorax]

If you look at the big picture, the greatest winner of the commercial ISS program is SpaceX:

- selected as vehicle for CRS-1
- launch provider for CRS-1
- selected 2 vehicles for CRS-2
- launch provider for CRS-2
- selected vehicle for Commercial Crew
- launch provider for Commercial Crew

Followed by ULA:

- backup launch provider for CRS-1 (Cygnus)
- launch provider for CRS-2 (DreamChaser)
- potential launch provider for CRS-2  (Cygnus)
- launch provider for Commercial Crew (CST-100)

Followed by Orbital ATK:

- Selected for CRS-1
- launch provider for CRS-1
- Selected for CRS-2
- launch provider for (part of) CRS-2

Followed by Boing (although they indirectly profit from ULA profits):

- Selected for Commercial Crew

Followed by Sierra Nevada

- Selected for CRS-2


With this in mind, Sierra Nevada only gets a tiny portion of the cake. They have significant development and testing costs to get a so far only proposed cargo-dreamchaser in the air. Their vehicle offers some unique capabilities - mainly low-g reentry as well as advancements to lifting body space vehicles
(which I think are overall superior to capsules when used on earth. Let's not forget the main reason SpaceX opted for capsule development is because they have Mars in mind. In my opinion - for LEO missions a lifting body with wings that can glide effortless through the atmospheric soup seems just much more elegant than a capsule that needs to break its fall with rockets or parachutes. But its mostly the smooth controlled reentry where an aerodynamic body can really shine compared to a capsule.
Of course when you develop space technology for Mars settlement, wings are a dead end...)

ULA has the easiest job, all they need to do is launch a bunch of of-the-shelf Atlas for the usual fee and not have a launch failure. Kinda lame - no real progress here.

SpaceX I think does the most for the money they get. They get less money than both Boing and Orbital/ATK and yet provide an equal if not better service. I'd say its mostly SpaceX who makes Commercial Space work and viable for NASA. On top of that with all the development for reusable rockets and bringing space exploration as a whole forward - they are the most awesome of all commercial space companies right now.

Orbital ATK offer a pretty traditional expendable deal - but with their own developed launch vehicle and spacecraft - imho a honorable effort - despite a few questionable design choices (genuine N1 engines? really?)  and missing breakthrough advances - they kinda do enough to deserve being part of it IMHO.

Boing develops a brand new space capsule with absolutely breakthrough technological advances such as:
- ability to bring an astronaut to space alive - encapsuled within a conical shape on top of a rocket
- dock said capsule to a space station
- survive reentry thanks to an expendable heat shield in front of the blunt shape
- break the fall with awesome breakthrough "parachute(tm)" technology
(any similarities to the Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyus, Shuguang, Shenzhou, or Dragon1 space capsules are purely incidental)
then buys a launch from their subsidiary launch provider ULA on an existing expensive EELV
A technological feat that totally deserves getting twice the money that SpaceX is getting for the commercial crew services...
(Edit: If StarLiner was an open source project, they might have called it "YASC" (Yet Another Space Capsule))

Did I forget anyone?

[Star One]

How interesting within a few posts one sees Space X as a big loser in this and one sees it that they are the big winner.

[QuantumG]

As always.

[Hotblack Desiato]

(any similarities to the Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyus, Shuguang, Shenzhou, or Dragon1 space capsules are purely incidental)
then buys a launch from their subsidiary launch provider ULA on an existing expensive EELV
A technological feat that totally deserves getting twice the money that SpaceX is getting for the commercial crew services...
(Edit: If StarLiner was an open source project, they might have called it "YASC" (Yet Another Space Capsule))

Did I forget anyone?

the VA-capsule from the TKS-spacecraft?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA_spacecraft

[AncientU]

Honorable mention: CRS-1.5 (extensions) are a sizable chunk of business, comparable to CRS-2 for SpaceX and somewhat smaller for Orbital.

[Dante80]

This specific contract had five winners imo. SpaceX (6+ missions), OrbitalATK (6+ missions), SNC (6+ missions), LM (7+ launches, almost all of them on their most expensive LV variant) and ISS (provided that the Dreamchaser does well with the science return missions that it and the seventh crew member will enable).

Boeing lost. At least they will get some money via their ULA partnership.

[Robotbeat]

Boeing and LM are equal partners in ULA which launches Atlas V. Both Boeing and LM "won" by the same amount for the Atlas launches.

ULA has been a "thing" for many, many years now. Why do people still think LM = Atlas V?

[Dante80]

Because I thought that for commercial launches, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services retains the rights to market Atlas. Then, they give the job to ULA but still get their markup (which the other company does not get). ULA themselves cannot market or sell commercial launches. They will be able to do that when Vulcan arrives..

I might be wrong on this.

[Antilope7724]

OrbitalATK and SpaceX provide a new spacecraft for each resupply mission (with maybe some reused parts). How many DreamChasers will be required to fulfill the mission? With 4 missions a year among the 3 suppliers their turn comes back around in about a year. Wonder how fast they will be able to refurbish and reuse a DreamChaser? Wouldn't want to try it with only one, so at least two?

[Dante80]

If they do 2 missions per year and have two Dreamchasers, they should be able to do it in time. Maybe the can have a third test article that can be converted if needed. 

[CorvusCorax]

Yeah, I guess the one thing SNC could not afford with the contracts as is is a launch failure.

- SpaceX could afford it, because they had enough commercial launches and other activities (development program for a new rocket versions) to buffer the setback

- Orbital managed to cope with it by merging with ATK and making a deal with the ULA

If SNC looses an orbiter - with only 6 guaranteed launches and likely just barely enough money to design and operate their vehicle, they are gonna have a big problem. Let's hope they don't fail *fingers crossed*

[Rocket Science]

How interesting within a few posts one sees Space X as a big loser in this and one sees it that they are the big winner.

Without this all we would be is a "mutual admiration society"...

[Antilope7724]

Taking this a little further, with 6 or 8 flights among 2 DreamChasers, each will potentially only fly 3 or 4 times under the contract.

[arachnitect]

OrbitalATK and SpaceX provide a new spacecraft for each resupply mission (with maybe some reused parts). How many DreamChasers will be required to fulfill the mission? With 4 missions a year among the 3 suppliers their turn comes back around in about a year. Wonder how fast they will be able to refurbish and reuse a DreamChaser? Wouldn't want to try it with only one, so at least two?

This assumes that the vehicle mix stays constant throughout the contract, which might not be the case.

I suspect we'll see NASA front-load the existing contractors, with SNC flying at a higher rate once they come online.

[Hotblack Desiato]

OrbitalATK and SpaceX provide a new spacecraft for each resupply mission (with maybe some reused parts). How many DreamChasers will be required to fulfill the mission? With 4 missions a year among the 3 suppliers their turn comes back around in about a year. Wonder how fast they will be able to refurbish and reuse a DreamChaser? Wouldn't want to try it with only one, so at least two?

I haven't yet seen the amount of money connected with that contract. But if the production of one dreamchaser demands a similar amount of work as dragon, cygnus and cst-100, they could use the CRS2-contract to build up a fleet of at least 6 dreamchasers. With that fleet they'll be well suited for supplying future private space stations.

With only 2 DCs, they might have quite a problem if one launch or landing fails (suddenly, they'd be down to 1 DC).

[CorvusCorax]

It might be slightly of topic - but I wonder what happens after 2024.

We'll have (with SLS) 4 US launch providers, 4 crewed vehicles (2 of them reusable) and 3 unmanned transport vehicles (2 of em reuseable)

Then the Russians take their ISS modules to build their new space station and the rest supposedly gets a fiery atmospheric burial.

What do you then use this fleet of vehicles for? What's the market for the commercial suppliers?

Is there any plan for a US part of a ISS follow-up space station? Any chance of funding of which?

I guess Bigelow would be willing to supply a few inflatable modules suitable for space tourism as well as some research, but that's hardly comparable to what the ISS is now. And of all the launch providers SpaceX is so far the only one potentially capable of bringing the prices of space flight low enough for anything but gov funded stuff.

At the same time both JAXA, ESA and NASA would be seriously lacking a platform for their space science. (Although I guess SpaceX wouldn't mind launching a few of their Standalone Dragon2 capsules for research missions if NASA so ordered)


Both Orbital/ATK and SNC seriously need a perspective to survive past 2024 - and I guess SpaceX wouldn't mind either. I wonder if "Commercial Space" might come up with a plan for a private research station to be leased for gov funded space science by then.

It might be unfeasible, but what if a private entity - maybe a joint venture of the competing private space companies - would "buy" the bulk of ISS modules instead of letting them reenter and adds a few Bigelow modules to replace the then missing Russian parts?  Might be cheaper than designing a completely new station - unless the ISS would be so badly in need of maintenance by 2024 that its unfeasible to keep the parts (the Russians don't seem to think so)

but again, slightly of topic

[Robotbeat]

OrbitalATK and SpaceX provide a new spacecraft for each resupply mission (with maybe some reused parts). ...

That was the case for the initial CRS-1, but even for the extended CRS-1, SpaceX intends to reuse some of the capsules. For CRS-2 especially there will be capsule reuse. As far as SNC, they say Dreamchaser is good for at least 15 reuses, so they may need just one (or two to have a spare).

[Coastal Ron]

Is there any plan for a US part of a ISS follow-up space station? Any chance of funding of which?

Conceptually, yes, NASA has plans for human-tended facilities after the ISS, but nothing is firm.

I would look at the CRS-1 and CRS-2 capabilities, with Commercial Crew too, as confirming that NASA doesn't need to do everything itself when it goes to space, and that the private sector (with some assistance) is becoming capable enough to support operations in space on their own.

So then the question is really whether someone will be able to find business models, outside of supporting NASA, that allow Boeing, Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada Corp, and SpaceX to continue flying their cargo and crew vehicles for profit?

We don't know the answer to that yet.  But we all hope successful business models will be found.

[Hotblack Desiato]

@corvuscorax: I could imagine, that NASA wants to do a CRS-like contract system to get proposals for new modules of a new space station on a more convenient inclination (28°).

Then, ESA, JAXA and others could add modules. With dropping prices, space-station modules are in the range of smaller agencies and universities. DLR is currently contracting SNC for DC4EU, and dream chaser is useless without a station in orbit. I could imagine, that universities like MIT, Boulder Colorado, RWTH Aachen, university munich or ETH-Zürich would be very interested in having their own station modules, wiithout having to deal with the routine tasks for keeping the station alive.

Later, with larger modules like BA-2100 and SLS and BFR als LV, workshops on the spacestation could be in the range of startups (biochemistry, geo-sciences and so on).

But this should be discussed in a seperate thread.

[yg1968]

NASA said that it has no intention of building another space station. They will let commercial companies such as Bigelow do that in LEO.

There may be a need for a habitat in cislunar space. But there has been no commitment towards that. There is funding for an augmentation module in the recent appropriations bill but that is more of an addon to Orion that a station. My personal view is that NASA should let commercial companies do the augmentation module but some at NASA feel that NASA should be doing it themselves.

See this thread for more on this topic:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=38818.msg1466604#msg1466604