NASA boosts Alabama’s chances of landing Dream Chaser spaceship in Huntsville

The maximum value of the contract was listed at $14 billion when it was advertised for bids, but a NASA official cautioned that the final cost would be significantly lower.

Every one of these companies gets at least six flights to deliver cargo to the space station, which will begin in late 2019 and extend through 2024, NASA said.

“It’s pretty emotional. We’ve been chasing this for a long time”, corporate vice president Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada’s Space Systems, told Discovery News.

Sierra Nevada had submitted a proposal for a crewed version of Dream Chaser under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, during the announcement of awardees under the Commercial Crew transportation Capability phase of that contract – Dream Chaser was not selected. Other countries, private companies, academic institutions, and researchers are now interested in taking advantage of ISS facilities for many different kinds of purposes.

NASA announced station resupply contracts Thursday to SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada. Those companies are the incumbents shipping cargo to the orbiting worldwide space station and were initially favored by industry officials to emerge as winners in the competition for follow-on contracts. Sierra Nevada will receive money as well to launch its Dream Chaser on top of the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket.

The US Department of Defense has awarded two contracts total worth $79 million for development of rocket propulsion system prototypes for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. SpaceX experienced its own launch failure last summer; it hopes to resume supply runs for NASA in the next month or so.

“As we move from leo to cis-lunar space, we’re looking at ways and means to develop the commercial market to meet our needs and goals”, Sam Scimemi, ISS Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a press conference.

“The upgraded Antares is now undergoing integration with the new RD-181 engines fully installed into the first stage of the rocket”, said Scott Lehr, President of Orbital ATK’s Flight Systems Group.

Both SpaceX and Orbital were awarded the first round of commercial resupply contracts back in 2008.