Commercial reusable suborbital spacecraft – such as Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx, Masten Space Systems’ Xaero, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and Armadillo Aerospace’s modular vehicles – provide the nation with a new low-cost capability to carry payloads and people to the edge of space. NASA is taking advantage of these capabilities with its CRuSR program. Following the Space Shuttle’s retirement, commercial suborbital vehicles are expected to be the next American flights of people into space from US soil.

Admiral Craig Steidle, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, stated, “Today’s announcement illustrates the future of NASA-industry partnerships in order to offer R&D, science, and education flight opportunities.”

According to NASA, “each successful vendor will receive an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. These two-year contracts, worth a combined total of $10 million, will allow NASA to draw from a pool of commercial space companies to deliver payload integration and flight services. The flights will carry a variety of payloads to help meet the agency’s research and technology needs.” A total of seven firms were selected.

Admiral Steidle added, “The Commercial Spaceflight Federation applauds the leadership of Dr. Bobby Braun, NASA’s Chief Technologist. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a strong advocate for the CRuSR program and for Space Technology.”

NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun stated in the NASA press release, “NASA is moving toward the goal of making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide range of engineers, scientists and technologists. The government’s ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA’s future missions in space.”

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Executive Director John Gedmark noted, “This is a big day for commercial space. Just as 1920s air mail purchases helped jumpstart the airline industry, we expect that NASA’s purchases of flights on commercial suborbital vehicles will help accelerate this new industry. Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and educators have attended CSF workshops on the topic of using commercial suborbital vehicles, and we are thrilled to see that the R&D community will now be able to get rides to space.”

NASA’s full press release can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/aug/HQ_11-258_Flight_Opportunities.html .

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes the recent announcement by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation that several U.S. spaceports have received funds under the inaugural round of the Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Grants (STIM-Grants) program.

Several Commercial Spaceflight Federation member spaceports received grants as part of the first-year’s $500,000 total allocation, including:

* The New Mexico Spaceport Authority; to provide an Automated Weather Observing System;
* The East Kern Airport District in Mojave, California; for an emergency response vehicle; and
* The Jacksonville Airport Authority in Florida; to develop a Spaceport Master Plan for Cecil Field Spaceport.

CSF Executive Director John Gedmark stated, “The FAA’s Spaceport Grants program has been a major policy priority for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. We see this program as essential to improving safety and maintaining the economic competitiveness of U.S. spaceports. This is the first year the program has received funds from the U.S. Congress, and we are pleased to see that FAA has moved promptly to award the funds so that spaceport infrastructure improvements can begin immediately. We look forward to seeing this program continue and grow.”

The press release issued by the FAA is available at http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=11919 .

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high- tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

Norm Augustine, chair of the White House’s blue-ribbon panel reviewing the space program, recently stated, “NASA ought to be exploring outer space and doing new things, and turning over the transportation of weight and people, goods and people, to low Earth orbit … [as] a commercial endeavor, in our view.” Indeed, the U.S. commercial orbital spaceflight industry is already entrusted to launch multi-billion-dollar satellites for the national security sector, as well as one-of-a-kind scientific missions for NASA.

The chart below, which we’ve created using publicly available data, illustrates that when you add up the markets represented by NASA, other government agencies, and commercial customers, the commercial orbital spaceflight industry is publicly planning over 40 flights to orbit between now and 2014. This is a robust foundation on which to grow the industry to meet Norm Augustine’s stated goal above.

(click on image below to enlarge)

To download a copy of the Commercial Orbital Spaceflight Industry Timeline, click here [pdf].

Augustine quote source: PBS NewsHour, 8/14/2009.