Commercial Orbital Transportation Services

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Computer rendering of Rocketplane-Kistler K-1 approaching ISS (RpK)

Commercial Orbital Transportation Services is a NASA program to coordinate the commercial delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station. The program was announced on January 18, 2006.^[1] NASA has suggested that "Commercial services to ISS will be necessary through at least 2015."^[2]

1 Purpose
2 Program rationale
3 Proposals
- 3.1 Phase 1 winners
- 3.2 Rejected proposals
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Purpose

Instead of flying payloads to the International Space Station (ISS) on government operated vehicles, NASA would spend $500 million (less than the cost of a single Space Shuttle flight) through 2010 to finance the demonstration of orbital transportation services from commercial providers. Unlike any previous NASA project, the proposed spacecraft are intended to be owned and financed primarily by the companies themselves and will be designed to serve both U.S. government agencies and commercial customers. NASA will contract for missions as its needs become clear.

This is more challenging than existent commercial space transportation because it requires precision orbit insertion, rendezvous and possibly docking with another spacecraft. The private spaceflight vendors^[3] are competing for four specific service areas:

External unpressurized cargo delivery and disposal
Internal pressurized cargo delivery and disposal
Internal pressurized cargo delivery, return and recovery
Crew Transportation.

[edit] Program rationale

NASA explored a program for ISS services in the mid 1990s entitled "Alt Access" for Alternate Access. While NASA funded Alt Access no further than preliminary studies, this program convinced numerous entrepreneurs that ISS could emerge as a significant market opportunity.

After years of keeping orbital transport for human spaceflight in-house, NASA concluded that firms in a free market could develop and operate such a system more efficiently and affordably than a government bureaucracy.^{[citation needed]} NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has stated that without affordable Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS), the agency will not have enough funds remaining to achieve the objectives of the Vision for Space Exploration.^{[citation needed]}

Furthermore, if such services were unavailable by the end of 2010, NASA would be forced to purchase orbital transportation services on foreign spacecraft such as the Russian Federal Space Agency's Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's H-II Transfer Vehicle since NASA's own Crew Exploration Vehicle may not be ready until 2014.

NASA anticipates that COTS services to ISS will be necessary through at least 2015. NASA projects at most a half-dozen COTS flights a year that would transport 4 to 9 tonnes annually. The NASA Administrator has suggested that space transportation services procurement may be expanded to orbital fuel depots and lunar surface deliveries should the first phase of COTS prove successful.^[4]

[edit] Proposals

More than twenty organizations submitted COTS proposals in March 2006 of which twenty were publicly disclosed.^[5] In May 2006 NASA selected five proposals for further evaluation.^[6]

On August 18, 2006, NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) announced that Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) are the two winners for Phase I of the COTS program.^[7] NASA will engage these finalists in Space Act agreements through 2010.