COMMERCIAL ORBITAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES

'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]

Contents

Purpose

Program rationale

Proposals

Phase 1 winners

Rejected proposals

References

External links

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.

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.^[4] 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. In November 2005, Dr. Griffin articulated that
:''With the advent of the ISS, there will exist for the first time a strong, identifiable market for "routine" transportation service to and from LEO, and that this will be only the first step in what will be a huge opportunity for truly commercial space enterprise. We believe that when we engage the engine of competition, these services will be provided in a more cost-effective fashion than when the government has to do it.''^[1]
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 asserts that once COTS is operational, it will no longer procure Russian cargo delivery services.^[1]
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 10 tonnes annually.^[1] 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.^[8]

Proposals

More than twenty organizations submitted COTS proposals in March 2006 of which twenty were publicly disclosed.^[9] In May 2006 NASA selected five proposals for further evaluation.^[10]
On August 18, 2006, NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) announced that SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler are the two winners for Phase I of the COTS program.^[1] NASA will engage these finalists in Space Act agreements through 2010.

Phase 1 winners

NASA's COTS phase 1 investment awarded on August 18, 2006.

★ Rocketplane Kistler — awarded $207 million

★ SpaceX — awarded $278 million

Rejected proposals

★ Advent Launch Services

★ Andrews Space (website)

★ Boeing – ATV-based (with Arianespace and EADS)

★ Constellation Services International (with Progress)

★ Exploration Partners, LLC

★ Lockheed Martin – 2 proposals, one ATV-based, the other HTV-based

★ Odyssey Space Research

★ Orbital Sciences^[1]

★ PanAero LLC – Space Van 2010

★ PlanetSpace – Silver Dart

★ SpaceDev^[1]

★ SpaceHab^[1] APEX modular cargo spacecraft

★ Space Systems/Loral – Aquarius

★ Thortek Laboratories, Inc. (website)

★ t/Space – CXV air-launched capsule

★ Triton Systems

★ Venturer Aerospace – S-550

References

1.
2.
Human Space Flight Transition Plan

3. COTS Vendors
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. Private ventures vie to service space station
10. NASA makes first round of cuts for COTS
11.
12.
13.
14.

External links

★ COTS - Commercial Orbital Transportation Services

★ The COTS Enigma

★ Private ventures vie to service space station (MSNBC, March 20, 2006)

★ Advent Going for COTS - Dispatches from the Final Frontier, March 17, 2006

★ Venturer Space COTS Proposal: The S-550 - Selenian Boondocks, March 17, 2006

★ Venturer Aerospace pursues NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract - March 15, 2006

★ ISS supply competitors break cover - Flight International, March 14, 2006

★ SpaceX raises its sights by Alan Boyle, Cosmic Log, March 9, 2006

★ Finishing the space station: an essential part of the Vision by Taylor Dinerman, The Space Review, March 6, 2006

★ Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Demonstrations - NASA procurement site

★ The importance of Alternate Access

★ NASA changes focus of ISS Cargo Delivery Plans by Keith Cowing, NASA Watch October 7 2003