Senate NASA Bill Supports COTS

The United States Senate $20.2 billion funding bill expresses support for the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services [COTS-D] program and directs the Administrator to establish a competition to develop a private sector capability to launch human crew.

The Senate language is good news for commercial space launch firms and especially those now in the NASA COTS contract pipeline such as Orbital Sciences Corporation at Wallops Island, Va. and SpaceX at Cape Canveral, FL. BUT, the COTS provision may be nothing more than "academic." The measure must reach a rapid compromise with the House and then go to the Bush White House for a signature or veto.

Nonetheless, the final amount expected NASA is in the $18-billion range or less from CongressionaL appropriators for the next fiscal year.