Additional Cargo Flights to Space Station Ordered by NASA
NASA has ordered 12 additional cargo flights under its Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contracts to ensure continuous science and cargo delivery for the agency and its international partners to the International Space Station.
The 12 additional missions ordered – six each to Northrop Grumman and SpaceX – will provide resupply services to the station through 2026.
In 2016, NASA awarded three American companies CRS-2 contracts to resupply the International Space Station so crew members can continue to conduct science research and technology development that benefits people on Earth and supports human missions to the Moon and Mars.
While the maximum potential value of all contracts is $14 billion, NASA orders missions as needed, and the total prices paid under the contract will depend on which mission types are ordered.
On Oct. 16, 2020, NASA ordered two additional cargo flights from Northrop Grumman, and three additional missions from SpaceX beyond the minimum guarantee.
With this action, a total of 32 missions have been ordered by the agency for cargo resupply missions under the CRS-2 contracts with 14 missions to Northrop Grumman, three missions to Sierra Nevada Corporation (now Sierra Space), and 15 missions to SpaceX.
A little more than two years after the end of the Space Shuttle Program, SpaceX and Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman) began successfully resupplying the space station with cargo launched from the United States. The companies developed the rockets and spacecraft through public-private partnerships under the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, an initiative that aimed to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective commercial transportation to and from the space station and low-Earth orbit. NASA then awarded Orbital ATK and SpaceX commercial resupply services contracts to each deliver at least 20 metric tons of cargo to the orbiting laboratory.
NASA says this partnership is changing the way the agency does business, helping build a strong American commercial space industry, and freeing the agency to focus on developing the next-generation rocket and spacecraft that will allow us to travel farther in space than ever before.
(Source NASA news release. Image from file)