NASA has awarded four small businesses 90-day contracts totaling $902,000 to develop concepts and requirements to provide access to the International Space Station on emerging launch systems.
These studies could uncover a potential backup capability, augmenting the station's primary resupply vehicles – the U.S. Space Shuttle, Russian Progress, European Space Agency Automated Transfer Vehicle and the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicles.
"Alternate Access to Space Station is a potential market opportunity for emerging or established U.S. launch companies," said Dan Dumbacher, manager of the 2nd Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle Program Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
"These companies will develop concepts for alternate access to the Space Station, determine what a launch service needs to do to meet the requirements, and offer suggestions on specific development risk reduction activities – such as technology development or business planning — that we need to perform."
Companies selected are:
