Musk’s SpaceX Faces Competition for $3.5 Billion NASA Cargo Flights, Bloomberg
“Increased political scrutiny may provide an incentive to NASA to add more contractors to provide “back-up options” and avoid protests by losing bidders, said Nick Taborek, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. NASA isn’t expected to gain additional funding from Congress, however, so adding new participants would probably mean less money for the current cargo haulers.”
Keith’s note: Despite articles like this and others, I detect no indication that a CRS-2 announcement is imminent i.e. today. PAO usually waits until the last minute but they do give media a heads up.

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

14 replies on “Commercial Cargo Selection Announcement Rumors (Update)”

    1. I would like to see Dragon, ATK and Dream Chaser. Boeing can be used as a back up incase one of the others is down.

    2. Do to the delay BOEING is in baby.

      Bet they are greasing some palms RIGHT now!!!

      Throw the Bums out!!!!

      Bet The Powers That Be (TPTB) 🙂 heard that it was going to be Cygnus and SpaceX because that’s the cheapest safest solution (multiple launchers) And said no way.

      Order up some more Russian engines.

    3. Duel use, now that’s what I’m talking about. That would beat the demolition derby at the county fair. 🙂 sorry, just being funny

  3. The government shutdown crowd doesn’t have the votes to do it this time. Too many others in Congress do not want to shut down the government going into an election year.

  5. I agree. That has been my opinion all along; the visual of awarding a new contract before at least one incumbent is flying again seems awkward at best.
    Nasa: And now for the CRS 2 winners…
    Congress/Press: How about CRS 1?
    NASA (looks down embarassed): Oh they are both grounded.

  6. Seems Kieth is more correct, It is about getting more money to Boeing through SLS and having only one cargo provider for ISS

  7. so.. you have SpaceX with a well tested reliable cargo craft and a moderately reliable launcher, Orbital with a very reliable tested cargo craft but an untested launcher, and SNC with an untested cargo craft and a launcher of impeccable reliability, but uses Russian engines.

  8. I vote a three way split

    However the contract says at least 6 or 9 launches each?(I think its 6 minimum) so that would be 18 launches from 2018 through 2024 or 6 years.

    18/6 or 18/7 is around 3 flights a year so we no more then that would be ordered ,so we could have a third provider.

    SNC SpaceX and Orbital !

    SNC allows for down mass and a future deal use as a human crew vehicle

    Orbital makes for a nice choice do to extensibility to cislunar for Orion or a gateway and a cargo missions to cislunar/L2 and it takes out the garbage for ISS and gateway(solar orbit disposal?)

    Orbital to cislunar will require Vulcan and Falcon heavy!

    SpaceX is dual use already in near term for human and cargo

    We need a CRS-3 BAA to flush out how a commercial gateway would look like and this would add Bigalow to our menagerie of space station providers, imagine a space station of bigelow and orbital components.The ESA could pay for the orbital components that are incorporated into Cygnus in exchange for ESA astronauts to cislunar

    I have been arguing for some time that we need to have a common docking mechanism for Cygnus and Spacex and SNC to dock with one another, we did years ago sign a space rescue treaty

    1. A three-way contract for CRS-2 would be nice. I’m just wondering if NASA is going to extend SpaceX’s & OATK’s CRS-1 Contract to the full 3.1 billion dollars. That’s 6 more flights for Dragon and 3 more for Cygnus. Maybe that will free up more bucks for CRS-2 to add Dream Chaser since CRS-1 supply flights will overlap CRS-2. Just wondering…..

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