In July, NASA alarmed much of the entrepreneurial space community when it announced it was considering shifting from a Space Act Agreement (SAA) approach to a something closer to a conventional contract for the next round of its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. The first two rounds of CCDev, as well as the earlier Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to develop cargo vehicles for the International Space Station (ISS), all used SAAs and were well-received by both NASA and industry. However, NASA’s proposal to use a hybrid between an SAA and a conventional contract based on Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) raised concerns among some in industry that it would create a greater bureaucratic burden for companies and increase costs.

On Friday, NASA held a follow-up forum on its plans for the “Integrated Design Phase” of CCDev, organized on only a few days notice and apparently to a modest in-person audience at the Kennedy Space Center (with a larger audience presumably watching via webcast). At the forum NASA officials confirmed that, even after getting considerable feedback from industry on the use of SAAs versus FAR-based contracts, it was still pressing ahead with its original plans to use a SAA/FAR hybrid for the upcoming CCDev competition.

“Why did we end up going to a contract when many of our partners in industry would prefer a Space Act Agreement?” asked Brent Jett, deputy manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA. He explained than one purpose of the CCDev program was to certify commercially-developed vehicles to fly NASA astronauts to the ISS. He said that the focus of the upcoming Integrated Design Phase was to have a mature “end-to-end” crew transportation system at the critical design review (CDR) level, as well as a plan on how to certify that system to meet NASA’s requirements in later development phases. “When you look at that objective, it’s clear to me that the purpose of the Integrated Design Phase is directly for the benefit of the US government and NASA,” he said. “When you talk to procurement and legal experts, they will tell you that since that is the purpose of this phase, that we cannot use a Space Act Agreement.”

That analysis hinges on exactly when NASA or other government agencies can use so-called “Other Transaction Authority” (OTA), which in NASA’s case is a Space Act Agreement. OTA gives government agencies the flexibility to use alternative, streamlined agreements with the private sector, but to avoid their being used to get around conventional procurement regulations, there are limitations on when such agreements can be entered into. At a Women In Aerospace presentation this summer not directly related to CCDev, an official from NASA’s Office of General Counsel described when SAAs can be used. The presentation noted that a contract is required when the purpose of the activity is to acquire goods or services for the direct benefit or use by the government. NASA’s argument—one that is not likely shared by many in industry—is that the Integrated Design phase will be primarily for the benefit of NASA, hence some form of contract, rather than an SAA, much be used. (As for previous CCDev phases, NASA argues it has been primarily helping industry accelerate their technologies for commercial crew systems that serve multiple customers, and thus is not primarily for the benefit of the government.)

Jett, as well as Phil McAlister of NASA Headquarters, emphasized that the contract that they’re proposing would retain many of the desirable elements of an SAA. The contract, while FAR-based, will include milestone-based payments, and allow companies to propose their own detailed statements of work for this phase of the effort. Companies will be exempt from Cost Accounting Standards (and the bureaucratic overhead associated with them) in this contract phase. There will also be a “balanced approach” to intellectual property, without going into greater detail, Jett said.

NASA is planning to release a draft RFP for the next CCDev phase next week, with a requirements workshop and industry day planned for October 4 and 5, respectively, at the Kennedy Space Center. The final RFP is due out by the end of the year.

NASA is not the only one who has been scrutinizing the use of SAAs for the CCDev program. In the report accompanying its fiscal year 2012 commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee was critical of NASA’s use of such agreements for CCDev. While giving NASA $500 million for CCDev in 2012, one of the strings it attached was language limiting the use of SAAs in future CCDev rounds. “The Committee believes that the current practice by NASA has gone beyond what is cited under NASA’s own policy directive” for using SAAs, the report states. “Such misuse of these authorities undermines the oversight of NASA in the procurement process and threatens crew safety. For future rounds of commercial crew competitions and acquisitions, NASA shall limit the use of funded Space Act Agreements as stated in the directive in order to preserve critical NASA oversight of Federal funds provided for spacecraft and launch vehicle development.”

The question now facing companies currently involved or interested in CCDev is whether this shift from a pure SAA to a FAR-based contract with some elements of an SAA—but also likely with some greater overhead—is worth the promise of federal funding to develop crew transportation systems.

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Position Statement:

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Supports Use of Space Act Agreements (SAAs) for Next Phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program

For the next phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program, following CCDev Rounds 1 and 2, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation strongly supports the use of Space Act Agreements (SAAs) under NASA’s Other Transaction Agreements (OTA) authority, rather than a Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)-based approach. SAA’s are the best means for NASA to support commercial development of systems to transport crew and cargo to the Space Station.

Over the last 30 years, the Air Force and NASA have made numerous attempts to replace some of the capabilities of the Space Shuttle, such as satellite launch, cargo transport, and human transport. Examples include Ares I, COTS Cargo, Orbital Space Plane (OSP), VentureStar/X-33, Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), National Launch System (NLS), and X-30/National Aerospace Plane (NASP). The contrast is stark: of these programs, only the programs that used OTAs resulted in new launch vehicles successfully flying to orbit.

A primary example is the successful development of the two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs) under Air Force OTAs with Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Both companies received $500 million from the government and contributed additional funds of their own. Both programs successfully met requirements levied by the federal government, and have since been used to launch our Nation’s most critical national security space assets for nearly a decade. Another example is NASA’s COTS Cargo development program, also conducted under an SAA/OTA, was the first NASA program since 1981 to result in a new launch vehicle and spacecraft successfully reaching orbit.

Space Act Agreements embody a public-private partnership between both NASA and the company to develop a capability that is to be used for both government and private purposes. SAAs let companies focus on the most essential aspects of a program, meeting the requirements for performance and safety at a reduced cost. By contrast, traditional FAR-based acquisition approaches “by and for the government” establish a manager-contractor relationship in which the government directs the contractor, effectively controlling the development decisions. Such a relationship is not conducive to the innovative approach necessary to develop new capabilities that will be owned and operated by commercial companies to serve both government and commercial customers.

In addition, SAAs are more appropriate than traditional FAR-based contracting for the next phase of the Commercial Crew Development Program because:

* SAAs will increase competition and expand NASA’s choices – Traditional FAR-based contracts contain numerous regulations and reporting requirements that would fundamentally change the way some commercial companies have to do business, such that they would likely not participate in the Commercial Crew program. Examples include tracking requirements for all employees’ activities whether engaged in the particular development activity or not and compliance monitoring of numerous legal contracting clauses. SAAs will allow many more companies and subcontractors to participate, bringing low-cost, innovative solutions to federal requirements. This includes commercial entities that previously avoided doing business with the government because of the burdensome obligations imposed by the FARs. The use of FAR-based contracts for the next phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew development program – even fixed-price – will significantly limit NASA’s choices.

* SAAs allow incorporation of safety and performance requirements – SAAs can be written to ensure the proper insight versus oversight level and processes as mutually agreed by NASA and the companies. SAAs allow the tailoring of the public-private partnership to meet both parties’ needs, including levying NASA safety and performance requirements, as was done under the EELV program. In contrast to the FAR, which can be both overly broad and burdensome, the flexibility of a SAA allows NASA and its commercial partners to formulate a relationship that permits optimal results.

* SAAs can include other FAR requirements as needed – SAAs can contain virtually anything both parties agree to include, and have the flexibility to be easily tailored as needed. Traditional FAR-based contracts have numerous legal requirements that cannot be easily modified or waived. SAAs represent the best of both worlds, providing NASA with the ability to incorporate relevant and necessary FAR provisions without imposing the entirety of the FAR that will result in time and money being wasted on rigid, irrelevant, and counterproductive provisions.

* SAAs allow for private investment – SAAs allow funding from both public and private sources to be used in developing capabilities that will be used for both commercial and government purposes. Traditional FAR-based contracting rules do not easily accommodate the use of both public and private funds. Private investment enables a program to achieve the same result at a lower cost to the government.

* SAAs have been proven to lower costs – A NASA cost study showed the COTS Cargo development program has achieved successes at a fraction of the cost of a traditional government launch-vehicle program. If instead of using SAAs NASA had used a hybrid of traditional and commercial approaches, the cost would have been significantly increased, and if NASA had used a more traditional FAR-based approach the cost would have increased further still. The cost-growth that traditionally accompanies the FAR approach often reaches the point where costs become prohibitive and the development program is later canceled.

In summary, the use of SAAs/OTAs is vital for NASA to promote innovation and quickly, affordably, and safely develop crew transportation capabilities. SAAs have been upheld by the Government Accountability Office as an appropriate mechanism for supporting the development of commercial space transportation. For these reasons, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation strongly supports the use of Space Act Agreements (SAAs) for the next phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program following CCDev Rounds 1 and 2.

To download a PDF version of this document, please click here.

Commercial spacecraft will speed NASA’s return to space once the Space Shuttle is retired

Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Friday, July 8, 2011 – As the Space Shuttle is readied for its final, historic flight today, the next NASA astronauts to launch from America will do so on a commercial spacecraft, in a historic shift.

“With the retirement of the Space Shuttle, it is time to look to our commercial spaceflight industry to provide safe and affordable crew delivery,” said Admiral Craig Steidle, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.  “The growth of commercial spaceflight will enable NASA to have a bright future ahead.”

“This week, we welcome the arrival of the Commercial Space Age,” added John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

“In fact, thanks to commercial spaceflight, the next decade will see more flights to space than in any previous decade of the Space Age.  This marks a historic milestone,” noted Gedmark.

“Commercial space vehicles will launch NASA astronauts, private citizens, and scientists and researchers by the dozens, and will even dock with private space stations. These are not dreams; this is near-term reality,” added Gedmark.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program will enable NASA astronauts to once again launch from U.S. soil on American-made vehicles such as the SpaceX Dragon, the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, the Boeing CST-100, and the Blue Origin Space Vehicle.  The Commercial Crew Program will create thousands of jobs in the process, including a significant number of jobs in Florida.

Admiral Steidle added, “The commercial space industry is the fastest means to get American astronauts back into space aboard US spacecraft.”

Eric Anderson, chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and chair of Space Adventures, stated, “Commercial spaceflight is a good-news, made-in-America story that Americans can be proud of – it’s a story about job creation, inspiration, and technological innovation.”

Anderson added, “Commercial spaceflight will demonstrate to the entire world, in high profile fashion, the power of U.S. entrepreneurship and creativity. We are embarking on a truly amazing period for spaceflight – a real sea change.”

Anderson concluded, “As people watch the Space Shuttle’s white contrail stretch across the sky for the final time, we hope they will think, not just of the Shuttle’s proud legacy, but of the dawn of a new era – commercial space flight.  Changes like this only occur in a generation – and it will be a change that will profoundly affect our nation.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

# # #

Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to congratulate United Launch Alliance (ULA) and NASA on their newly-announced Space Act Agreement to help ready the Atlas V for flying humans commercially to space as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The majority of the work under the Space Act Agreement will be completed by the end of 2011, according to ULA.

“I am truly excited about the addition of ULA to NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program team. Having ULA on board may speed the development of a commercial crew transportation system for the International Space Station, allowing NASA to concentrate its resources on exploring beyond low-Earth orbit,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, in a press release issued by NASA.

John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, stated, “Atlas V has flown 26 for 26 successful missions, and the Atlas family has had 97 consecutive successes. The Commercial Crew Program is strengthened by today’s announcement.”

“Today’s announcement further highlights how the Commercial Crew Program is enabling NASA to regain American access to space as soon as possible,” added Gedmark.

Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to congratulate member companies Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace for winning the latest round of contracts today to integrate and fly payloads to space as part of NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program. The CRuSR program is part of NASA’s Space Technology Program under the leadership of NASA’s Chief Technologist, Dr. Bobby Braun.

Commercial reusable suborbital spacecraft – such as Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx, Masten Space Systems’ Xaero, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and Armadillo Aerospace’s modular vehicles – provide the nation with a new low-cost capability to carry payloads and people to the edge of space. NASA is taking advantage of these capabilities with its CRuSR program. Following the Space Shuttle’s retirement, commercial suborbital vehicles are expected to be the next American flights of people into space from US soil.

Admiral Craig Steidle, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, stated, “Today’s announcement illustrates the future of NASA-industry partnerships in order to offer R&D, science, and education flight opportunities.”

According to NASA, “each successful vendor will receive an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. These two-year contracts, worth a combined total of $10 million, will allow NASA to draw from a pool of commercial space companies to deliver payload integration and flight services. The flights will carry a variety of payloads to help meet the agency’s research and technology needs.” A total of seven firms were selected.

Admiral Steidle added, “The Commercial Spaceflight Federation applauds the leadership of Dr. Bobby Braun, NASA’s Chief Technologist. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a strong advocate for the CRuSR program and for Space Technology.”

NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun stated in the NASA press release, “NASA is moving toward the goal of making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide range of engineers, scientists and technologists. The government’s ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA’s future missions in space.”

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Executive Director John Gedmark noted, “This is a big day for commercial space. Just as 1920s air mail purchases helped jumpstart the airline industry, we expect that NASA’s purchases of flights on commercial suborbital vehicles will help accelerate this new industry. Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and educators have attended CSF workshops on the topic of using commercial suborbital vehicles, and we are thrilled to see that the R&D community will now be able to get rides to space.”

NASA’s full press release can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/aug/HQ_11-258_Flight_Opportunities.html .

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

# # #

The commercial spaceflight industry was recently featured in a NBC Nightly News piece examining the future of spaceflight following retirement of the Space Shuttle.

“With just one more shuttle mission to go before the program ends this summer, a new space race is already well underway,” says NBC anchor Lester Holt.

The NBC Nightly News video link (”Space Race II”) is available at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43211040

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

# # #

Washington, D.C. – The National Aerospace Training and Research Center (NASTAR) in Southampton, PA, a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, welcomed last week its latest set of future scientist-astronauts and educator-astronauts for training. Participants are training to conduct scientific research while flying onboard commercial suborbital spacecraft such as those operated by Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, XCOR Aerospace, and Armadillo Aerospace.

Several videos of the training session are available below:
(Multiple videos with detailed article:) http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1531
(Cockpit view during centrifuge run:) http://onorbit.com/node/3322
(SpaceShipTwo acceleration profile in centrifuge:) http://www.onorbit.com/node/3323

Demonstrating the strong interest from the scientific community in using commercial suborbital vehicles for science, research, and education, a total of 42 researchers from 18 different universities and organizations have now each spent three days training at NASTAR Center in four separate classes since the Suborbital Scientist Training Program debuted in January 2010. The upcoming suborbital scientist class on July 11-13 is already fully booked, and a university booked a custom class for July 18-20. The next available slots for potential scientist-astronauts is September 12-14.

Keith Cowing, a Board of Directors member of the Challenger Center for Space Education and well-known space journalist, remarked, “Based on my NASTAR experience (centrifuge & altitude chamber), ANYONE in good health with good training can fly to space. These new suborbital vehicles will inaugurate a new era for education and science, and I’m excited to cover it just as its true potential starts to unfold.”

Dr. Alan Stern, associate vice president at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and chairman of the CSF’s Suborbital Applications Researchers Group, stated, “This shows sustained interest in the researcher/educator community” in suborbital spaceflight. In early 2010, SwRI helped kick off the Suborbital Scientist Training Program in conjunction with NASTAR. (See: http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2009/nastar.htm)

Training sessions in the multi-day “Suborbital Scientist Training Course” included: Altitude Chamber Flight in a hypobaric chamber; G-Tolerance Flights in a high-g centrifuge; and a distraction factor exercise. Topics covered in ground school included: Intro to Suborbital Flight & Vehicles; Altitude Physiology; Motion & Acceleration Physiology; Space Launch & Reentry Training; Working Under Pressure; and Time Management. (For more info on the training please visit the following link: http://www.nastarcenter.com/space/suborbital_scientist)

Brienna Henwood, Director for Space and Research at NASTAR Center, remarked, “I can’t think of a better way to inspire students to pursue science careers, than by providing hands-on space training and realistic spaceflight opportunities that will enable them to one day join the ranks of an entirely new class of explorer – the suborbital scientist-astronaut. We fully expect that hundreds of scientists will fly into space during the next 10 years as these vehicles start flying, and NASTAR is proud to offer the needed space training services to get them there.”

Other participants included: Cathy Olkin and Constantine Tsang from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), an nonprofit institution which recently announced it will be buying tickets for scientists’ flights to space as part of a historic deal announced by SwRI to buy seats on the XCOR Aerospace and Virgin Galactic vehicles; Rex Ridenoure, CEO of Ecliptic Enterprises, also a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation; Tony Dokupil from NEWSWEEK, and several other trainees.

About the Environmental Tectonics Corporation (ETC) – NASTAR Center
ETC’s The National AeroSpace Training and Research Center (NASTAR) Center houses state-of-the-art equipment and professional staff to support the training and research needs of the aerospace community, including military aviation (fixed and rotary wing), civil aviation (fixed and rotary wing), space travel (government and private) and research support and data collection. NASTAR Center’s equipment and programs are highly modular and flexible and can accommodate a wide range of aerospace training and research requirements. For more information please visit http://www.nastarcenter.com or contact Brienna Henwood at bhenwood@nastarcenter.com or 215-355-9100 x1504.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

# # #

Washington, D.C., Thursday, April 28, 2011 – Ten years ago on April 28, 2001, businessman and entrepreneur Dennis Tito became the first private citizen to pay his own way to travel to space, flying to the International Space Station for an eight day stay before returning safely to Earth. The flight made newspaper headlines around the world, and marked a landmark milestone in the growth of an entire industry devoted to commercial human spaceflight.

Eric Anderson, Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and Chairman of Space Adventures, the company that brokered the ground-breaking flight, stated “Tito, a former NASA scientist, demonstrated in dramatic fashion that spaceflight was going to become accessible to private enterprise, not just government agencies. In the 10 years since Dennis Tito’s flight, we’ve seen numerous markets for commercial spaceflight open, ranging from NASA missions and space tourism, to scientific research.”

“Dennis Tito’s journey paved the way for private investors to begin financing an entire commercial spaceflight industry,” said John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

A diverse group of investors have since stepped up to the plate to make the new industry a reality, committing a total of approximately $1.5 billion of private investment between them according to an independent study “Commercial Spaceflight Industry Indicators” by the Tauri Group. In 2004, the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE, with funding provided by Anousheh Ansari who herself made a private trip to the International Space Station, was won when SpaceShipOne completed a pair of back-to-back flights to suborbital space. SpaceShipOne was built by the well-known aircraft research and development company Scaled Composites, with funding from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen.

“Since Dennis Tito’s flight in 2001, there’s been a steady drumbeat of accomplishments toward realizing this new future. The Ansari X PRIZE was won, hundreds of people have placed deposits for suborbital flights, NASA lent its endorsement by committing hundreds of millions of dollars through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) and Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) programs, SpaceX became the first company to privately launch and recover a space capsule, and a whole group of companies began making initial test flights of a new generation of reusable suborbital spacecraft.” added Gedmark. “We are enthusiastically looking forward to what happens in the weeks and months ahead.”

# # #

NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist Pursuing High-Payoff Projects Including Prizes, Suborbital Research, Technology R&D

Washington, D.C. – NASA has announced its first four payloads to fly on commercial suborbital spacecraft, kicking off a new era of low-cost technology R&D, science, and STEM education enabled by new commercial spacecraft being developed by Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace. NASA also announced the latest round of payloads to fly on the Zero-G parabolic aircraft operated by Zero Gravity Corporation. NASA’s suborbital payloads announcement illustrates the high-payoff projects being pursued by NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT), a newly formed division whose purpose is to revitalize technology R&D at NASA through innovative research.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes the strong support for space technology investments and the Office of the Chief Technologist in the NASA FY2012 proposed budget, including such high-profile programs as Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research, Centennial Challenges, and NASA’s commercial parabolic flight program. Other exciting NASA technology programs being supported by the agency include Cryogenic Propellant Transfer and Storage, In-Space Propulsion, Space Power Generation and Storage, Nuclear Systems, Lightweight Materials and Structures, Human-Robotic Systems, Autonomous Systems, Next-Generation Life Support, Adaptive Entry Systems, and In-Situ Resource Utilization.

CSF Executive Director John Gedmark stated, “Technology R&D is vital to NASA’s future. The Office of the Chief Technologist, under the leadership of Dr. Robert Braun, is pushing the frontiers of technological achievement and perfectly embodying the “can-do” spirit of NASA. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to be able to support such programs. We look forward to continuing to work with OCT and NASA’s other divisions as the space agency pursues breakthrough technologies in this new decade.”

Commenting on NASA’s suborbital payloads announcement, Dr. Alan Stern, chair of the CSF’s Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG) and Associate Vice President with the Southwest Research Institute, said, “This really is great news for the commercial suborbital industry, and for the research community as well. NASA’s announcement of some of its own first payloads that it will be flying to space on new commercial vehicles, with many more in the pipeline, is a good first step and is welcomed by researchers and technologists alike. The low cost and high flight rates of these vehicles are a real game-changer, and the benefits of these vehicles for education, science, and technology R&D are going to be substantial. Bravo to NASA for taking this first concrete step forward.”

NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, which consists of the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) Program and the Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training (FAST) Program, announced that the following four payloads will be flown this year (2011) on suborbital spacecraft, either by Masten Space Systems or by Armadillo Aerospace:

– “Investigation to Determine Rotational Stability of On-Orbit Propellant Storage and Transfer Systems Undergoing Operational Fuel Transfer Scenarios” from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Fla., NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and United Launch Alliance, Centennial, Colo.; Sathya Gangadharan, project manager (PM)

– “Printing the Space Future” (3D printing/manufacturing technology) from Made In Space Inc., Moffett Field, Calif.; Jason Dunn, principal investigator (PI)

– “Electromagnetic Field Measurements on Suborbital Launch Vehicles” from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Md.; Todd Smith and Lars Dyrud, co-PI

– “Precision Landing Exploration Technology (PLANET) Demonstration” from Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, Ma., and NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston; Douglas Zimpfer, PM; Tye Brady, PI

The first two payloads listed above will also fly on the Zero Gravity Corporation’s Zero-G parabolic aircraft, as will twelve other payloads also listed in NASA’s announcement that will fly on the parabolic Zero-G aircraft.

Further payload selection is continually ongoing, as the solicitation remains open at: https://c3.ndc.nasa.gov/flightopportunities/applications/ .

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

# # #

Press Conference with Winners of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program to Take Place at Kennedy Space Center, Florida on Thursday, April 28

Kennedy Space Center, Florida – As President Obama and Americans nationwide honor the historic accomplishments of the retiring Space Shuttle, an exciting new era of commercial spaceflight is being readied. Tomorrow morning NASA will hold a press conference at Kennedy Space Center with commercial space pioneers.

“Once the Space Shuttle retires this year, the next vehicle to carry astronauts into space from Florida’s Space Coast will be a commercial spacecraft – and this marks a historic change, perhaps the biggest in NASA’s fifty-year history,” said Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

America’s space program received a huge boost earlier this month when NASA awarded $269 million in competitive agreements to four pioneering commercial space companies who are developing the capability to take crews to low Earth orbit commercially: Blue Origin, The Boeing Company, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX. The program will create thousands of jobs across the United States, including a significant number in Florida. Company executives and senior NASA officials will be participating in a press conference at Kennedy Space Center at 11 am EDT on Thursday, April 28.

What: Press conference with winners of NASA’s $269M Commercial Crew Development Program
Where: NASA Kennedy Space Center press auditorium, also carried live on NASA TV and online:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
When: 11am Eastern Daylight Time, Thursday, April 28
Who:
- Rob Meyerson, President and Program Manager, Blue Origin
- John Elbon, VP and Program Manager Commercial Crew Transportation, the Boeing Company
- Mark Sirangelo, Chairman, Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems
- Garrett Reisman, Senior Engineer, SpaceX and former NASA Astronaut
- Phil McAlister, Acting Director of Commercial Spaceflight Development, NASA Headquarters
- Ed Mango, Program Manager of Commercial Crew Program, NASA Kennedy Space Center

Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Bretton Alexander continued, “These private companies are building and testing real spaceships that will inaugurate a whole new kind of space race.” Alexander added, “NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is on par with the government Airmail Act that spurred the growth of early aviation and led to today’s passenger airline industry, which generates billions of dollars annually for the American economy.”

“Commercial spaceflight is about innovation, inspiration and jobs,” noted Eric Anderson, Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. “We’re at the forefront of major innovation, and the commercial spaceflight industry can serve as an example to the world of the power of American entrepreneurship.”

Anderson added, “We are really at the threshold of something truly transformative. We’ve seen numerous markets open ranging from NASA missions and space tourism, to scientific research.”

John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation stated, “Commercial spaceflight is a great deal for the American taxpayer. NASA will no longer have to send money to Russia to buy seats for our astronauts. We can spend that money to create jobs here at home instead.”

Gedmark concluded, “We’ll finally be able to realize the sci-fi future people have been dreaming about, one that inspired an entire generation of dreamers and innovators. People are again imagining a future like we saw in the landmark film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, where private spacecraft offered frequent flights into space. This is going to be one of the most exciting stories of the 21st century, and we are just at the beginning of that story.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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The Federation Congratulates NASA’s Efforts to Restore US Crew Transportation Capability Following Retirement of the Space Shuttle and Decrease Reliance on Russian Soyuz

Washington, D.C., Monday, April 18, 2011 – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation congratulates NASA on its announcement today to award a total of $269 million through NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Round Two (“CCDev2”) Program. The winners include CSF members Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation would also like to congratulate the Boeing team that includes CSF Member Bigelow Aerospace. The awards will allow US commercial companies to achieve critical milestones on the path to achieving commercial human spaceflight capabilities, thereby enabling America to end America’s reliance on Russian vehicles to send humans to space, lower costs to the U.S. taxpayer, replace some of the capabilities of the Space Shuttle when it retires later this year, and help spur new technology innovation and job growth in the U.S. space industry.

The CCDev2 program represents the continuation of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (“COTS”) Cargo and CCDev programs, under which companies have been developing various commercial launch vehicles and spacecraft. Awards will take the form of milestone-based, fixed-price, pay-for-performance NASA investment using Space Act Agreements instead of traditional government contracts. The program will culminate in a Commercial Crew Program in which companies will demonstrate the capability of taking NASA crews to and from the International Space Station.

“Today is a landmark day for commercial spaceflight. This is a big step towards opening up the space frontier,” said John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. “Leveraging private investment is the only way NASA can make its dollars go farther in these times of belt tightening. And by investing in commercial spaceflight rather than continuing to sending billions of dollars to Russia, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is creating American jobs instead of sending them abroad.”

“Today’s announcement marks a critical milestone on the path to a commercial human spaceflight sector that will lower the cost of space access and open new markets,” said Eric Anderson, Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. “To have a large and diverse group of U.S. companies among today’s winners, including both established contractors and newer entrants, emphasizes that American industry is ready to handle the task of commercial human spaceflight—safely, affordably, and rapidly. We expect immediate job creation across the United States, including in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, and Washington state.”

Anderson added, “A major advantage of commercial spaceflight programs over traditional NASA procurements is that the CCDev program is commercially structured so that NASA pays only when performance milestones are met. These agreements are fixed-price, milestone-based, and leverage private investment. These companies are investing their own money alongside NASA’s money adding even more investment in the final system. Each taxpayer dollar goes farther.”

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to congratulate:

• Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, which will receive $22 million for orbital commercial spaceflight vehicle design and development, including testing of its pusher escape system and engine testing.

• Sierra Nevada Corporation of Louisville, Colorado, which will receive $80 million to mature the Dream Chaser human spaceflight system, focusing on multiple spacecraft items.

• SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, which flew its Dragon capsule to orbit and recovered it successfully last year, which will receive $75 million for items including launch escape system engine maturation and crew accommodation prototype development.

• The Boeing Company of Houston, Texas, whose team includes CSF member Bigelow Aerospace, which will receive $92.3 million for CST-100 crew spacecraft maturation and launch vehicle integration, focusing on multiple items including launch escape system propulsion.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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Armadillo Aerospace's Stig rocket lifts off from Spaceport America earlier this year on its ill-fated flight. (credit: Armadillo Aerospace)

For a decade now Armadillo Aerospace has been working a variety of designs for suborbital vehicles, initially in pursuit of the Ansari X PRIZE and more recently for commercial and government business: the company has a partnership with Space Adventures to develop suborbital vehicles for space tourism flights as well as a NASA Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) contract to perform a series of test flights. Armadillo has also been working on a long “tube” rocket dubbed Stig (after the character on Top Gear; it’s also an acronym for “suborbital transport inertially guided”). Despite a setback earlier this year, the company has plans for two more Stig test flights this year.

The first Stig flight, designated Stig A-1, took place in May from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Unfortunately, the flight was not a success, suffering from several problems, including a roll problem and a failure of its parachute system. “It actually flew really well, it just didn’t land very well,” said Armadillo’s Neil Milburn during a Commercial Spaceflight Forum organized by SpaceUp Houston earlier this month. He showed a video of that fateful flight during his presentation at the Houston event.

Despite that setback (as well as the loss of another vehicle, a “SuperMod” called Dalek, in June), the company is moving ahead with future Stig flights. Milburn revealed at the forum that Armadillo is working on two more Stig vehicles it plans to fly later this year. Stig A-2, Milburn said, will feature a new film-cooled 5000-lbf (22,200-newton) engine. “It’s probably the best engine we’ve built to date,” he said. Armadillo hopes to launch that from Spaceport America in September. That will be followed in November by Stig B, which will have slightly better performance: while they hope to fly Stig A-2 to 80 kilometers, Stig B will be a “true 100-kilometer-capable vehicle”, he said.

The tube rockets are designed to be clustered and staged to allow for larger payloads to be carried on suborbital flights. The engine will also serve as the basis for its suborbital space tourism vehicle; Milburn said a first flight of a “prototype boilerplate vehicle” is planned for 2012. The vehicle will take off vertically with eight engines, turning off four in flight. In a shift, though, the vehicle will not perform a powered vertical landing. “We’re working on a GPS steerable recovery system with chutes” that they plan to test on the next Stig flight. He suggested the shift from a powered landing to using parachutes was intended to lower the fuel load on the vehicle.

Later, in the Q&A portion of the panel session, Milburn said Armadillo is looking, eventually, to orbital flight as well. “We intend to go orbital down the road,” he said. “We want to crawl before we walk and before we run.” He said they would be interested in launching from a coastal spaceport in Texas, like the one that been in some reports earlier this summer; “we’ve even talked about launching from the Gulf [of Mexico], if we can’t find a land base.”

If you go to Virgin Galactic’s web site today you’ll see a release about the first flight of WhiteKnightTwo by Virgin Galactic chief test pilot David Mackay, which took place yesterday in Mojave. “I was able to fly WhiteKnight through the full extent of its flight envelope—to its maximum altitude, speed and crosswind limit—so it was a very thorough first look,” he said in the statement, which also indicated he would be making more test flights of the carrier aircraft for SpaceShipTwo in the coming months.

A bigger milestone, though, may have been a few days earlier. According to Scaled Composites’s test summaries, Scaled and Sierra Nevada Corporation performed on Sunday a “full duration hot-fire” of the rocket motor that will power SpaceShipTwo on its suborbital flights. The 55-second burn appeared to be a success, according to the brief summary, which indicated that “all objectives [were] completed” in the test. The engine test was the seventh for the full-scale “RocketMotorTwo” engine, and the first in five months.

The slow development of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor has been a major factor in the delays involved in getting the vehicle ready for test flights. “They’ve had to scale up the hybrid from a relatively smaller version to a bigger version,” George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, said at the NewSpace 2011 conference at NASA Ames at the end of July. “We’ve seen some good progress over the summer,” he added. “We expect to be flying into space next year.”

Blue Origin's PM 2 vehicle in flight shortly before it lost control last month. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Last month the small community of people who closely follow the NewSpace field expected a test flight by ultra-secretive Blue Origin, based on a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) issued by the FAA warning of “rocket launch activity” by the company at its launch site in west Texas on August 24. that date came and went without any news, which is not surprising given how the company closely rations information about its activity.

Late today came news that the test flight did not go well. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the vehicle suffered a malfunction in flight and was destroyed. The initial report indicated that the failure took place when ground controllers lost contact with the vehicle during the flight. The vehicle was either severely damaged or destroyed; “parts of the vehicle were recovered on the ground and are now being analyzed by company experts,” the Journal article reported. An unnamed local official in the nearby town of Van Horn, Texas, claimed in an interview with Forbes.com that some locals saw the launch failure, likening it (with some amount of hyperbole, no doubt) to the Challenger accident.

In a rare public statement, Blue Origin posted a brief note to the “Updates” page of its web site late Friday afternoon. “[L]ast week we lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet,” the statement, signed by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos (of Amazon.com fame), reads. “A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle.” Included in the update were several images from the test flight and a previous, successful one in May. Although Blue Origin has posted information about research opportunities and job openings, this is the first update about its flight test activities posted in exactly 56 months: the first, and only other one, is dated January 2, 2007. (The page does disclaim, in understated language, “We won’t make these updates frequently.”)

The company disclosed few other details about the vehicle, which is known as “PM 2″ in its experimental permit with the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Bezos did note that they did “a short hop mission” three months ago; that took place on May 6, according to the list of permitted launches on the FAA’s web site (not yet updated to include the August launch failure.) The “PM” designation suggests this is a propulsion module in Blue Origin’s two-stage suborbital vehicle design, with a separate crew module; Bezos notes in a postscript to his statement that “the development vehicle doesn’t have a crew capsule”, only a round fairing. “We’re working on the sub-orbital crew capsule separately, as well as an orbital crew vehicle to support NASA’s Commercial Crew program,” he adds.

Bezos, in his note, sounded undaunted by the failure. “Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we’re signed up for this to be hard, and the Blue Origin team is doing an outstanding job,” he wrote. “We’re already working on our next development vehicle.”

Some in the media, though, tried to unnecessarily play up the implications of the test flight failure. “The mishap, which industry officials said occurred last Wednesday, dealt a potentially major blow to the ambitions of Mr. Bezos,” claimed Andy Pasztor in his Wall Street Journal article, even though Bezos himself didn’t sound overly concerned in his message. Later, noting that Blue Origin is one of four companies with 2nd round NASA Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) awards, Pasztor suggested that “The failure also could set back White House plans to promote commercially developed spacecraft to transport crews to the international space station by the second half of this decade,” even though the test flight did not appear to be directly related to their separate CCDev-2 work, as Bezos also indicated in his note.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal published a blog post with the curious title “Rich Guys Have No Luck in Space”. The text of the blog post, though, doesn’t match the headline: some of those profiled seem to have had, or are having, at least halfway decent luck: Paul Allen was successful, for example, backing SpaceShipOne in the $10-million Ansari X PRIZE, while Elon Musk is enjoying some technical and business success at SpaceX after some early launch failures of its Falcon 1.

It’s worth remembering that this was, by all accounts, a test flight. And, by their nature, not all test flights are successful: that’s why you fly to, to find problems and correct them. Moreover, the loss of PM 2 is hardly the first time a vehicle has been lost in a test flight, either by a company or a government agency. It’s the nature of aerospace. By Bezos’s account, he sounds ready to move ahead, undaunted by the failure. There’s also a lesson for some in the media as well, to not overreact from a single test failure (or, for that matter, a single successful test).

One of the nice things about flying on Virgin America (among some other airlines) is having access to the Internet in flight. On one of those long transcontinental flights, it’s great to make the time productive by having access to the web, email, and the like. But what if you’re making a quick trip into space?

Flightglobal.com reports that Virgin Galactic is investigating the possibility of having Internet access on its suborbital flights. The system being considered, according to an unnamed source, would use X-band frequencies to provide connectivity between SpaceShipTwo and the ground. It doesn’t take much to imagine people using the system to post tweets, status updates, and the like from their brief jaunts into space.

There are, though, two problems with this proposal. One is technical. For space communications, X-band frequencies are traditionally reserved for government applications, including military satellite communications and deep space transmissions to spacecraft throughout the solar system. It’s not clear how a commercial venture would be able to use those frequencies. The other is more practical: if you’re spending $200,000 for a relatively short spaceflight, are you really going to be taking the time to post a Facebook update in-flight?

One Virgin official suggested the latter issue made it unlikely the company would develop an in-flight Internet access system. “I like Twitter as much as anyone else, but put the phone down,” advised Will Pomerantz, vice president of special projects, during a Commercial Spaceflight Forum organized by SpaceUp Houston on Thursday night. “Hopefully our passengers are not clamoring to look at their Blackberries and iPhones while in outer space.”

That approach makes some sense. Certainly there will be some data connectivity needs on these flights, both for vehicle telemetry as well as for transmitting data from any experiments carried on the vehicle, but a full-fledged Internet access system, like that on airliners, doesn’t seem necessary.

Last Thursday, as most expected, Boeing announced it had selected United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket to launch its CST-100 commercial crew vehicle, at least for a series of three test flights in 2015. (John Elbon, Boeing’s program manager for the CST-100, said that the company would recompete launches for the operational CST-100 missions, if funded, although barring any problems ULA would seem to have the inside track in that recompete.) The announcement, though, did offer some insights on Boeing’s plans and thoughts about NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program in general.

Of the three test flights using the Atlas 5 (a fourth will be a pad abort test that won’t require a launch vehicle), only one will be crewed: the last flight, which will place the CST-100 in orbit to rendezvous with the ISS. Elbon noted that two Boeing test pilots would fly that mission. Boeing hasn’t hired any test pilots, but Elbon said that they were in the process of selecting their first, who would participate in the CST-100 development to provide a pilot’s perspective. “We’re just starting the interview process,” he said. “Of course, it’s interesting to look at flown astronauts as candidates for this, and certainly we’ll consider that as we make selections. They could also be test pilots, maybe, that haven’t flown in space, or some mix of all that.”

Boeing isn’t the only company to select the Atlas 5 for commercial crew launches: two of the other three CCDev-2 awardees, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corporation, also have proposed launching their spacecraft on that vehicle. (SpaceX, of course, plans to use its own Falcon 9 for its crewed Dragon spacecraft.) George Sowers of ULA said part of the contract with Boeing covers work on the Atlas 5 launch site at Cape Canaveral to allow for crew access in and out of the vehicle on the pad. That work, Sowers noted, would not be specific to the CST-100 but could also support Blue Origin’s and Sierra Nevada’s vehicles. “Our preference is to have something that we could attach to the existing mobile launch platform, and not have to build a dedicated tower or gantry,” Sowers said.

Elbon also touched upon other burning issues regarding CCDev: the contracting mechanism and funding for the program. Last month NASA officials said they were tentatively planning to shift from a Space Act Agreement (SAA) to a contract that would still have some of the features of an SAA but also adhere to Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). That has generated an outcry of opposition from many companies, concerned about being overwhelmed with contracting bureaucracy and worried this could be a first step towards moving to traditional cost-plus contracts.

Elbon took a more nuanced view to the debate. “I think it’s unfortunate that the debate is centered around the contract mechanism and is not focused on the attributes that whatever mechanism is put in place needs to have,” he said, adding that he believes an SAA-based or FAR-based approach can be successful if those attributes are there. The biggest issue, he said, is who is responsible for design decisions: “The design decisions in this current environment rest with us as the developer,” he said, referring to the SAA-based CCDev-2 award Boeing currently is working out. ‘We can move much more rapidly through the design process by being able to make those decisions internally and not go through a series of boards and panels that vet things in the NASA system and then work contract changes to cause those things to happen.”

Another issue, he said, is ownership of the intellectual property (IP) involved in the development effort. “If truly our objective here is to develop a commercial market, it’s important that we retain the intellectual property so that we can use that vehicle for other purposes” beyond flying NASA astronauts to and from the ISS, as well as to keep that IP out of the hands of potential competitors.

“The debate really needs to be centered on what those things are and figuring out how to carry those things going forward,” he said of the key attributes for CCDev contracts. “I’m really disappointed in the direction that the debate took in the press conference” that unveiled NASA’s plans last month.

Regarding CCDev funding, Elbon expressed concerned about potential FY2012 budget cuts. What’s in the president’s budget request—$850 million a year from 2012 through 2016—is “in the neighborhood of what it would take to make this program successful,” he said, “so I would hope Congress would consider funding the program at or near those levels.” However, the House is proposing only $312 million for CCDev in 2012 in its appropriation bill awaiting consider by the full House. Funding has already had an effect on Boeing’s plans: Elbon noted that their initial test flight plans “was based on a different level of CCDev-2 funding that we received,” causing the company to push back its test schedule slightly. “There’s been about a quarter’s worth of impact due to the funding that came out of CCDev-2 as we went forward.”

Illustration of Boeing's proposed CST-100 commercial crew capsule.

Since unveiling its plans for developing a commercial crew spacecraft, Boeing has emphasized that its CST-100 spacecraft was launch vehicle agnostic: it could launch on an Atlas 5, Delta 4, or Falcon 9. And when ATK announced its plans in February for the Liberty launch vehicle, Boeing officials added it to the roster of vehicles compatible with the capsule. Now, however, the company plans to focus its attention on a single rocket.

At a media teleconference scheduled for noon Eastern time today, Boeing officials will announce the formal selection of the vehicle that will be used for the CST-100′s test flights in 2015 and operational missions to the ISS and other orbital destinations. This downselect is not surprising: at an April briefing, CST-100 program manager John Elbon said that they would select a specific vehicle to “really lay out the abort scenarios” and details associated with them.

The clear favorite in this vehicle competition is the Atlas 5. Two other Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) awardees, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada, have already picked the Atlas 5 to launch their crewed spacecraft, and ULA has an unfunded CCDev agreement with NASA to continue work on human-rating that launcher. ULA also offers the Delta 4, which does have Boeing heritage, but does not appear to be the subject of active human-rating work. Falcon 9 would require Boeing to depend on a competitor, SpaceX, for its launcher, while ATK’s Liberty, unlike the other three, isn’t flying yet, raising the question of whether it would be ready by mid-decade or not.

Much of the attention commercial spaceflight has been getting recently has been focused on NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, including, as noted here, concerns about contracting mechanisms for future phases of the program. But CCDev is very much based on the earlier Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program for developing commercial cargo transportation to and from the ISS; the success of CCDev is dependent in part on the success of COTS. And the two companies that have COTS agreements with NASA are making some news recently on their efforts.

SpaceX has, for some time, been working to get NASA to agree to combine their second and third COTS missions (their first successfully flew last December), allowing them to both approach and berth with the station on the same flight. Last Wednesday Aviation Week reported that NASA has tentatively agreed to combine the two flights, pending resolution of some issues, including the planned deployment of two small satellites during that mission. If approved, the mission would launch as soon as November 30, berthing at the ISS on December 7.

The following day, at the STS-135 post-landing press conference at the Kennedy Space Center, NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier confirmed that NASA was close to working out a deal to combine the two SpaceX flights, designed C2 and C3. “We technically have agreed with SpaceX that we want to combine those flights, but we haven’t given them formal approval yet,” he said. “We still want to go through some more analysis” on various technical aspects of the mission, he added, but said that if those issues can be worked out, combining the C2 and C3 flights made the most sense. “Overall, what we want to do is get to cargo delivery as fast as we can, and if the systems are mature enough and the design is mature enough, combining those two flights is that best way to get cargo to the ISS in the fastest manner possible.”

(While that news took place last week, there was very little notice of it then, perhaps as it was lost in the attention about the final shuttle landing. But when SpaceX tweeted effectively the same news Tuesday, although with a nine-day gap between launch and berthing, instead of seven from the AvWeek announcement, it got a lot more attention.)

The news is a little different for the other COTS awardee, Orbital Sciences. Its original plans called for a single demonstration mission of its Taurus 2 launch vehicle and Cygnus spacecraft in late 2010; like SpaceX, it suffered delays, pushing that mission back to later this year. Last Thursday, company officials announced that they were delaying that mission further, into next year. “We are targeting a test firing of the full stack in November, with a test launch, with a non-Cygnus payload on the top, in late December,” said Orbital senior vice president Frank Culbertson at an AIAA commercial space panel on Capitol Hill. The official COTS demo flight is now planned for late February 2012, he said, with full-fledged cargo flights to follow in the spring.

In a briefing with financial analysts earlier that day to talk about the company’s second quarter earnings, company executives blamed the delay on development of the launch site infrastructure at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island, Virginia. “Work related to installing and checking out the Wallops launch complex’s propellant and pressurization management systems has taken longer than we previously anticipated, delaying the turnover of the launch pad to us by some 6 to 8 weeks from the planned date,” Dave Thompson, chairman and CEO, said.

Another issue for the Taurus 2 was a problem last month during a test firing of one of the AJ-26 engines that powers the rocket’s first stage. During the test, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, a metal fuel line ruptured, “badly damaging” the engine on the test stand, according to a Space News account of the test.

“Orbital, Aerojet, and NASA have substantially completed our analysis of the cause of this test failure,” Thompson said on Thursday’s call, and were now screening the remaining AJ-26 engines that Aerojet has. Thompson said it appears that two-thirds of the engines can be used “as-is”, but one third “will require some level of rework or repair.” That two thirds, though, would be enough to avoid any schedule delays.

Last week NASA officials raised alarm in some corners of the space industry about its proposal to shift from a pure Space Act Agreement (SAA) for the next Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) round towards a hybrid approach that incorporates elements of both an SAA and a traditional contract. Not surprisingly, this topic came up again Thursday at the NewSpace 2011 Conference, although some made it clear contracting mechanisms were the lesser of their concerns about the future of CCDev.

Brent Jett, deputy manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA, told attendees during one panel session of the conference that he was aware of the concerns industry has raised since he and program manager Ed Mango outlined their proposed approach last week. “I know there’s a lot of angst in the community about the direction of the Commercial Crew Program,” he said. “There’s a group of people out there who strongly feel that Space Act Agreements is the only way to do it, the only way a program can be successful. There’s another group of people out there—not in this room, but within the government, within NASA—who strongly feel that to ensure crew safety, a cost-plus contract is the only way to it. So it’s almost like the debate in Washington over the debt ceiling.”

Companies have made clear their concerns about shifting from the SAA structure of previous CCDev rounds to this hybrid approach, which would incorporate many more elements of Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARs). But beyond general worries about an increase in paperwork associated with the FAR, what are the specific problems with NASA’s proposed approach?

Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada Corporation’s space systems division, said he didn’t absolutely reject NASA’s approach request. “From our company’s perspective, we don’t really have a concern, one way or another,” he said. However, the hybrid approach NASA is proposing could have some sticking point, he said, such as how to account in a FAR-based contract for the coinvestment companies are supposed to make in their systems, as well as how to account for the cost and schedule impacts of any changes imposed by NASA. “It’s not that these are things that can’t be overcome, but it’s an unusual set of circumstances, and I think that’s why many people are looking at one more round of Space Act Agreements leading to a FAR contract.”

Garrett Reisman, the former astronaut who is managing SpaceX’s CCDev-2 work, said his company wanted to stick to the fixed-price milestone-based approach used in CCDev and COTS. A FAR-based approach would require SpaceX to hire “a whole bunch more accountants” to deal with the overhead imposed by the FAR, he said. “In addition, it’s a big corporate culture change,” he said, noting that SpaceX engineers don’t fill out timecards. “It’s all an overhead burden we don’t currently have.”

How to handle the contract for the next round of CCDev might be overshadowed by a bigger concern: how much funding, if any, that will be available for it in the next round of the program. The House version of the FY12 appropriations bill that funds NASA would give CCDev $312 million, the same as for FY11 but well below the administration’s request of $850 million.

“What we really need is money, and support from Congress and the executive branch,” Jett said. Support from the executive branch is there, but Congress, given what it’s proposed so far in FY12, is lagging. He noted the CCDev budget is about one tenth the budget of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), which combined would get just over $3 billion in FY12 in the House bill.

“I can tell you that if that number holds for the next year, it’s going to be very challenging for us to maintain multiple partners, to maintain the type of progress we’ve made, and meet a goal to fly folks in the mid part of the decade,” Jett said. “At some point we’re going to have to spend more than a couple hundred million dollars a year.”

Company officials agreed with that concern. “The bigger issue [than contracting mechanisms] is making sure we have the proper funding for this program and making sure all of us make our milestones and go forward,” Sirangelo said.

“These are the things that keep me up at night,” Reisman said. “Worrying about how we can possibly succeed with the budgets cut way down.”

NASA’s Commercial Crew Development, or CCDev, program has so far been using a relatively unusual contracting mechanism that has provided both the agency and participating companies with greater flexibility to make progress on those systems. However, NASA officials indicated Wednesday that in future CCDev rounds they may shift to a somewhat more traditional contract, a move that has alarmed industry.

The first and second rounds of CCDev, as well as the earlier Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) cargo program, have been run as Space Act Agreements (SAA), a form of contracting known in bureaucratic lingo as other transactional authority (OTA). SAAs do not have the same contracting overhead as a traditional contract, be it fixed-price or cost-plus. The COTS and CCDev SAAs have been milestone-based, meaning that NASA provides payments to participating companies based on the progress they make—which also means that NASA doesn’t pay up if companies don’t achieve their stated milestones, and can cancel those agreements if necessary, as happened with Rocketplane Kistler in the original COTS round.

At a commercial crew forum held by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday, CCDev program officials talked about their plans for the next phase of the program, which would come next year. The “Integrated Design” phase would last two years and bring participating companies up through the critical design review on their systems, the last step before starting actual construction. This two-year phase would be followed by a Development, Test, Evaluation, and Certification (DTEC) phase, which would also include the initial flights to the International Space Station.

NASA’s original intent, according to Brent Jett, a former astronaut serving as deputy program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, was to use an SAA again for the Integrated Design phase. “As the team dug a little bit further into the Space Act Agreement, we did find several key limitations,” he said. The biggest one, he said, is that NASA cannot mandate requirements under an SAA, including for crew safety, but only provide them as a reference for industry. “Even if industry chose to design to those requirements, NASA is not allowed to tie any of the milestones in an SAA to compliance with those requirements,” he said. “That means NASA cannot accept the verification of those requirements and certify the system the way we need to for commercial crew under a Space Act Agreement.”

Jett noted that, under COTS, NASA was able to exploit something of a loophole in those rules, which allow the agency to levy safety requirements when a NASA facility—the ISS—was involved. NASA could do the same for CCDev, but only for operations at the ISS. “We would not be able to levy any requirements concerning ascent, entry” or any other portions of the flight not directly dealing with approaching and docking with the ISS.

NASA’s proposed approach for the next CCDev round, according to commercial crew program manager Ed Mango, “combines the best elements of an SAA with the features of a contract that wil allow NASA to approve the tailoring of requirements and the certification of a vehicle.” This “non-traditional contract” would continue to use milestone-based payments and also exempt companies from the cost accounting standards of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). “We believe that we are much closer to an SAA in our approach than we are to a traditional contract,” he said.

Representatives of industry present at the forum strongly objected to this proposed approach, though, largely out of concerns that, even with the cost accounting exception, adhering to the FAR would be very expensive. “Instead of taking an American flag to the station, we should have taken the FAR to the station and left it up there,” said Mike Gold of Bigelow Aerospace, referring to an American flag flown on the first shuttle mission that was left behind by the last shuttle crew, to be retrieved by the first commercial crew vehicle to visit the station. “You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.”

Others challenged the NASA conclusion that an SAA could not be used for commercial crew. Bobby Block of SpaceX noted that his company had an option on its COTS award—not exercised by NASA—to develop a crew capability as part of an SAA. Brett Alexander, former president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said NASA should provide more documentation to support its conclusion that an SAA would not work for CCDev, given that past analyses, by both NASA’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office, have concluded that SAAs are suitable for this. “[NASA's Office of the] General Counsel has not divulged what its legal reasoning is,” he said, “and I think they need to do that—not a couple charts, not things that you brief, but a legal brief that says, ‘here’s why,’ so that we can have that discussion.”

Mango and Jett said they were open to suggestions and feedback from industry on their proposed strategy for the next CCDev round. At the same time, NASA released yesterday a “Sources Sought Synopsis”, required under the FAR as the first step in the next phase of the CCDev program if they proceed under their proposed contract strategy. “I don’t want people to think that we’re locked in to this idea of a contract,” he said, but “we need to work in parallel so that we can continue to move forward.”