Oct 18 2007
From The Space Library
NASA announced a new competition for the remaining funds in its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Project. The announcement followed NASA’s decision to terminate its agreement with Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City, which had failed to meet requisite milestones toward developing and demonstrating commercial transportation capabilities to low Earth orbit. According to the COTS agreements, companies participating in the competition would receive seed money upon reaching specific performance milestones. NASA had selected two companies in 2006—Rocketplane Kistler and SpaceX of El Segundo, California—to receive COTS funding. Both companies had signed Space Act Agreements detailing mutually agreed financial and technical milestones and a payment schedule based on those requirements. Rocketplane Kistler had missed its fourth milestone in May—a second round of private financing. In early September, NASA had officially notified Rocketplane Kistler that the company had failed to perform, leading to the termination process. Unable to attract US$500 million in private investment, Rocketplane Kistler had expended its funds and had stopped nearly all its technical work by the end of July. NASA had disbursed to Rocketplane Kistler US$32.1 million out of the US$206.8 million that it had agreed to invest in the company. NASA would make the remaining US$174.7 million available to other aerospace firms in the new competition.
NASA, “NASA To Open New Competition for Space Transportation Seed Money,” news release 07-228, 18 October 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/oct/HQ_07228_COTS_competition.html (accessed 8 September 2010); Patrick Peterson, “RPK out of COTS Race,” Florida Today (Brevard, FL), 19 October 2007.
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