NASA has selected four US commercial aerospace companies to develop new space capabilities for the government and other customers.
The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative is aims to advance private sector development of integrated space capabilities by providing access to NASA’s spaceflight resources.
It wants to make sure that emerging products or services will be commercially available to government and non-government customers over the next five years.
The companies selected for the Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities and their projects are:
ATK Space Systems, in Beltsville, Maryland. – develops space logistics, hosted payload and other space transportation capabilities.
Final Frontier Design, in Brooklyn, New York – focuses on intra-vehicular activity space suits.
Space Exploration Technologies, in Hawthorne, California – works on space transportation capabilities that could be used to support missions into deep space.
United Launch Alliance, in Centennial, Colorado – develops new launch vehicle capabilities to reduce cost and enhance performance.
Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said:
“Companies in all shapes and sizes are investing their own capital toward innovative commercial space capabilities,”
Adding:
”These awards demonstrate the diversity and maturity of the commercial space industry. We look forward to working with these partners to advance space capabilities and make them available to NASA and other customers in the coming years.”
In a recent statement NASA said:
“The Space Act Agreements (SAAs) have no exchange of funds, and each party bears the cost of its participation. NASA’s contributions could include technical expertise, assessments, lessons learned, technologies and data. Sharing this existing expertise in a structured way requires minimal government resources while fostering the development of technologies to enable NASA to achieve its strategic goal to expand human exploration of the solar system and to advance exploration, science, innovation, benefits to humanity, and international collaboration.”