Note: Only forum leaders may delete posts.
*HTML is ON *UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend
Smilies Legend
NASA said Sept. 10 that it would hold a competition for $175 million in unspent funds should the U.S. space agency terminate Rocketplane Kistler's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) agreement. The competition would be open to all comers, NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said, including Rocketplane Kistler. Mathews said the U.S. space agency formally notified RpK Sept. 7 "that the company has failed to perform under its Space Act Agreement" and is in jeopardy of having its COTS agreement terminated. The notice was given in the form of a letter signed by Scott Horowitz, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems. Mathews said the COTS agreement requires NASA to provide such notice at least 30 days in advance of terminating the agreement for "failure to perform," such as missing agreed-upon milestones. "NASA has not terminated its relationship with RpK and has not finalized a decision whether to do so," she said. Several firms already have told NASA they would be interested in competing for COTS funding, while Space Exploration Technologies has appealed to the agency to give it RpK's unspent money in order to accelerate development of a crewed capability. Among the firms interested in a new COTS competition are five companies that signed unfunded Space Act Agreements with NASA this year, which entitles the agency to keep them abreast of changing COTS requirements. These companies are Chicago-based PlanetSpace, Reston, Va.-based Transformation Space Corp., Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Constellation Services International; Poway, Calif.-based SpaceDev, and Houston-based Spacehab.
Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts
Copyright 1999-2024 collectSPACE. All rights reserved.