Dec 23 2008
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it had awarded two contracts for commercial cargo-resupply services, one to Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Virginia, and one to SpaceX of Hawthorne, California. The fixedprice, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts each covered the delivery to the ISS of a minimum of 20 tonnes (20,000 kilograms or 44,092.45 pounds) of up-mass, cargo-resupply services, in addition to the delivery of nonstandard services in support of the cargo resupply. The eight flights that NASA ordered from Orbital Sciences had a value of approximately US$1.9 billion. SpaceX’s contract covered 12 flights and had a value of approximately US$1.6 billion. The maximum potential value of each contract was approximately US$3.1 billion; NASA estimated that, based on known requirements, the combined value of both contracts was US$3.5 billion. The contracts, which would begin on 1 January 2009 and would remain effective through 31 December 2016, represented the first agreements that NASA had signed with commercial firms for the independent development of rockets that would travel to the ISS.
NASA, “NASA Awards Space Station Commercial Resupply Services Contracts,” news release C08-069, 23 December 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/dec/HQ_C08-069_ISS_Resupply.html (accessed 22 December 2011); Andy Pasztor, “NASA Takes a Leap in Outsourcing,” Wall Street Journal, 24 December 2011).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
