WASHINGTON — Having delayed the award of follow-on Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts until at least November, NASA is considering ordering more International Space Station cargo deliveries from Orbital ATK and SpaceX, both of which had already quietly hauled in additional orders under CRS deals signed in 2008.
After contract modifications initiated late last year and finalized this summer, SpaceX is on the hook for a total of 15 flights to the space station, up from the 12 NASA ordered in 2008. Orbital ATK wound up with 10 flights, up from eight, following the latest round of contract modifications, NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz wrote in an Aug. 20 email.
“NASA is discussing additional modifications with both companies,” Schierholz wrote.
Schierholz declined to disclose the value of NASA’s latest CRS orders. “[W]e are in an active procurement for CRS-2 [and] to maintain fair competition under the CRS contract, it is essential that NASA protect the commercial pricing aspects under the contracts,” she wrote.
NASA’s original CRS order obligated SpaceX and Orbital ATK to deliver 20 metric tons of cargo each to ISS. At the time, that worked out to 12 flights for SpaceX totaling $1.6 billion and eight flights for Orbital ATK totaling $1.9 billion. Each company’s indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery CRS contract is good through 2018 and has a maximum value of $3.1 billion.
Orbital ATK and SpaceX now face competition for a follow-on CRS contract from at least three companies: Boeing, Sierra Nevada and Lockheed Martin. Those companies, and the incumbents, have all confirmed they bid on CRS-2 when NASA solicited offers in September.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force disclosed plans to award SpaceX a contract worth about $1 million to study the ins and outs of mating national security satellites to the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
According to a justification and approval document posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website Aug. 26, the $962,000 contract would cover 10 studies as the service prepares to enter a new era of competitively awarded launch missions.
For nearly a decade, the Defense Department has relied exclusively on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets to launch its operational military and intelligence satellites. But in May, the Air Force certified the Falcon 9 rocket to launch national security missions.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has capitulated to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in a dispute over a Blue Origin patent covering the landing of rockets at sea.
In an order made public today, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a motion to cancel the remaining 13 of 15 claims in the Blue Origin rocket-landing patent. Blue Origin itself had made the motion to cancel those claims, effectively acknowledging that its case was lost.
Blue Origin, based in Kent, Wash., has separately filed a “reissue” patent application covering the same general area. However, SpaceX has already attempted multiple rocket landings at sea and would likely be grandfathered in, allowing it to continue the practice, even if Blue Origin were to ultimately succeed in securing a valid patent.
SpaceX had already won a key early round in March in its attempt to invalidate the Blue Origin patent.
Representatives of both companies declined to comment on the latest ruling.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has capitulated to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in a dispute over a Blue Origin patent covering the landing of rockets at sea.
In an order made public today, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a motion to cancel the remaining 13 of 15 claims in the Blue Origin rocket-landing patent. Blue Origin itself had made the motion to cancel those claims, effectively acknowledging that its case was lost.
Blue Origin, based in Kent, Wash., has separately filed a “reissue” patent application covering the same general area. However, SpaceX has already attempted multiple rocket landings at sea and would likely be grandfathered in, allowing it to continue the practice, even if Blue Origin were to ultimately succeed in securing a valid patent.
SpaceX had already won a key early round in March in its attempt to invalidate the Blue Origin patent.
Representatives of both companies declined to comment on the latest ruling.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has capitulated to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in a dispute over a Blue Origin patent covering the landing of rockets at sea.
In an order made public today, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a motion to cancel the remaining 13 of 15 claims in the Blue Origin rocket-landing patent. Blue Origin itself had made the motion to cancel those claims, effectively acknowledging that its case was lost.
Blue Origin, based in Kent, Wash., has separately filed a “reissue” patent application covering the same general area. However, SpaceX has already attempted multiple rocket landings at sea and would likely be grandfathered in, allowing it to continue the practice, even if Blue Origin were to ultimately succeed in securing a valid patent.
SpaceX had already won a key early round in March in its attempt to invalidate the Blue Origin patent.
Representatives of both companies declined to comment on the latest ruling.
I don't even know why it is possible to patent "landing a rocket on a ship at sea"
Because reforming the US Patent System would unleash an nightmare of lobbying rarely seen in human history. It would be a mess, so it gets no traction. (And it doesn't split along normal ideological lines, so it's even messier.)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday unveiled plans to build a rocket manufacturing plant and launch site in Florida, a business that will compete against fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Bezos’ space startup, Blue Origin, intends to invest more than $200 million to build the rocket-building facility adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, state officials said. The rockets will fly from a refurbished launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the NASA spaceport.
The announcement follows last week’s opening of a Boeing commercial spaceship assembly plant at the Kennedy Space Center. Both projects included financial backing from state, local and regional economic development agencies. So far, Florida has invested about $2 billion to lure aerospace companies to the state.
Blue Origin has been developing and testing a small rocket, called New Shepard, that can travel about 100 miles above the planet before returning to Earth. The company’s planned new rockets would be able to reach orbital altitudes, such as the 250-mile-high perch of the International Space Station, and beyond.
Bezos, who was in Florida to make the announcement, said Blue Origin will also test its BE-4 engines at the new launch site. The company is partnering with United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, on the engine development.
Private spaceflight company Orbital Sciences has set a timeline for rocket launches that is too ambitious — and it’s doubtful the company will launch again on time, according to NASA’s inspector general. The space agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a scathing report today criticizing the flight plans of Orbital — the company that, along with SpaceX, holds a contract with NASA to launch cargo to the station. The inspector general analyzed Orbital's strategy for returning to flight after the company's rocket exploded during a routine mission last year.
Orbital has been on hiatus from launching rockets since last October, after the company's Antares rocket blew up during take off at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. It was supposed to be Orbital's third cargo resupply mission for NASA. But a problem with the rocket's engine caused the entire vehicle to ignite seconds after launch. The explosion destroyed Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft, filled with supplies for the station; the Wallops facility also sustained a lot of damage.
Since then, Orbital has been working to replace the engines in its Antares rocket. But replacing a rocket engine isn’t easy — you have to tweak the rocket’s design to incorporate the new engine — and so it’s taken some time. The problem is that Orbital doesn’t have time; it’s under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to launch five more resupply missions to the station by 2016. So as a temporary solution, Orbital plans to launch its Cygnus cargo craft atop the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket for the next two launches; then it'll use the Antares again. And rather than do five total missions, Orbital will consolidate to four. The first Atlas V launch is scheduled for late 2015, while the first Antares launch is scheduled for March 2016. The company says it'll just add more cargo to each mission to make up for the loss. This should come at no extra cost to NASA, Orbital claims.
Elon Musk, in a SpaceX prototype helmet, believes his company will be able to send passengers to Mars in approximately ten years.
The entrepreneur, photographed in the engineering model of the SpaceX Crew Dragon, the company’s first manned craft, due for launch in 2017.
The name sounds like a men’s cologne. Or a type of ox. It sounds possibly made up. But then, so much about Elon Musk seems the creation of a fiction writer—and not necessarily one committed to realism. At 44, Musk is both superstar entrepreneur and mad scientist. Sixteen years after cofounding a company called X.com that would, following a merger, go on to become PayPal, he’s launched the electric carmaker Tesla Motors and the aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, which are among the most closely watched—some would say obsessed-over—companies in the world. He has been compared to the Christian Grey character in Fifty Shades of Grey, though not as often as he’s been called “the real Tony Stark,” referring to the playboy tech entrepreneur whose alter ego, Iron Man, rescues the universe from various manifestations of evil.
Usa has more or less given up on space exploration. The current budget is pathetic and everything gets scaled down all the time. Waiting for the private sector is futile and wishfull thinking. What is needed is a breakthrough,but as long as a random banker on ws makes 10-100 times more then the best scientists this aint gonna happen off course.
@Rassy It's more than "given up on [only] space exploration" and the worst is that there is no breakthrough incoming. I dont understand how a country can be so shortsighted and give up all his future. That a funny paradox : in terms of funding science, republicans seems intelligent and democrats are really really really stupid so weird If we'd pay a tax on internet, scientifics will be so rich :p But as they're the kind of creatures with a brain it's for all humanity.
I wonder how long before SpaceX goes to bankruptcy?
On September 24 2015 00:22 Rassy wrote: Usa has more or less given up on space exploration. The current budget is pathetic and everything gets scaled down all the time. Waiting for the private sector is futile and wishfull thinking. What is needed is a breakthrough,but as long as a random banker on ws makes 10-100 times more then the best scientists this aint gonna happen off course.
It's really not a budget problem.
The average annual budget of NASA in 2014 dollars over the course of the Apollo program (1961-1975) is $23.89 billion.
In the 90s the budget hovered between $19-24 billion in 2014 dollars. Since 2000, it's been around $18-20 billion.
The only thing the budget does is give us a clue to what the real problem is. Between 1961 and 1975, the lowest budget was $6 billion and the highest $43 billion in 2014 dollars,
The variance of the budget is much smaller after that because NASA is now the establishment and wants to keep money flowing to constituents, contractors, etc. Basically, NASA management doesn't want to actually do things in manned space, because if you do something, after you've done it, it's done, and they think you need to find something else to do, otherwise they're afraid the money will dry up.
If you go to the moon, even if you can afford a moon program, then after your moon program is over, there will conceivably be some kind of "next step." Like a moon base, or a lunar space station, or a Mars program. The fear is that the next step will always be prohibitively expensive, so it wouldn't get funding, so that means you can't do the first program you wanted to do because it will eventually end. Do you see what I mean? They want to keep the same money flowing.
That's why the space shuttle lasted 30 years. That's why ISS cost $200 billion and like 30 shuttle launches. Because you can just spend all your money messing around in low earth orbit. That's why NASA's favorite proposals for new rockets have always involved the same technologies. Because if it's literally the same physical space shuttle engines, then they can employ the same people and keep the same companies happy and keep buying the same solid rocket boosters.
Trusting the private sector is exactly the right thing to do because the private sector can make great things when the environment is competitive (like in the 60s for instance, or SpaceX now). The "private sector" is doing it all anyways. NASA can't do shit without contracting aerospace companies. The difference is whether your system is set up to take advantage of the private sector or whether it's set up just to pander to the establishment (like ULA).
its hilarious listening to the litany of promises about future manned space exploration. all this crap about a human inhabited base on Mars and landing on Asteroids....
wake me up when a human travels just 1000 measly km off the face of the earth and lives to tell the tale... before anyone sinks tens of billions into these pie in the sky multi-million kilometer missions i'd just like to see someone manage 1,000 km off the earth.
here is Buzz sayin' we'll be back on the moon before 2010... LOL.
EPT
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