NASA Drops Agreement With Rocketplane

Friday, October 19th 2007, 7:27 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- NASA dropped a multimillion dollar space transportation agreement with Rocketplane Kistler Thursday and called for new competition in the space agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project.

NASA said it scrapped the agreement after the Oklahoma City-based aerospace company failed to meet a May deadline to secure a second round of private financing to develop and demonstrate commercial transportation capabilities to low Earth orbit.

NASA said it informed Rocketplane Kistler of its decision in a letter from Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Rick Gilbrech. Rocketplane's chairman and CEO, George French Jr., said he is still confident the company will participate in the COTS program in the future.

"I'm very proud of our team. We passed numerous NASA milestones and we're highly-rated by NASA," he said.

NASA's decision is the latest setback for the company, which in 2001 announced plans for a space tourism company that would use a spaceport in western Oklahoma to make spaceflight as common as commercial air travel for those who can afford the $200,000 ticket. But the company has yet to get its spacecraft off the ground, and in spite of mounting financial problems French has said Rocketplane remains committed to the project.

Design drawings and other specifics about the company's Rocketplane XP reusable spacecraft are scheduled to be rolled out at an X Prize event for space exploration and technology in New Mexico next week, French said.

Financial pressures related to development of a separate launch vehicle to serve as a commercial orbital transportation system for NASA slowed work on the Rocketplane XP spacecraft and the inauguration of suborbital flights from the Oklahoma Spaceport at the former Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base in Burns Flat, officials said.

COTS provides seed money to companies when they reach performance milestones to help them design and develop space transportation capabilities that could pave the way for private cargo deliveries to the International Space Station.

Of the $206.8 million NASA agreed to invest in Rocketplane Kistler, the company received $32.1 million, NASA said. The remaining $174.7 million will be offered to aerospace firms in a new competition.

"NASA remains fully committed to the COTS Project," Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office, said in a statement. "A vibrant commercial space industry will help NASA fulfill its promise to support the International Space Station, retire the space shuttle and return humans to the moon."

NASA chose Rocketplane Kistler and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, of El Segundo, Calif., to receive COTS funding last year. NASA said SpaceX has met all of its financial and technical milestones.

NASA also has unfunded COTS agreements with five other companies.

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