$3.5 Billion NASA Awarded Two Private Space Launch Contractors

NASA today announced that Space Exploration Technologies Corp. [SpaceX] and Orbital Sciences Corporation [OSC] were awarded two International Space Station (ISS) freight contracts totaling $3.5 billion dollars with a 1.9-billion-dollar order for 8 launches to the OSC and a $1.6 billion dollar order for 12 flights to SpaceX, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate Administrator for Space Operations.

Orbital Sciences Corporation will use a new launch pad at the Virginia Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island while SpaceX will launch from its new commercial spaceport at Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The first SpaceX launch is scheduled for December 2010, and the first OSC launch is set to take place in October 2011. The two contracts, which take effect on January 1, 2009 and expire on December 31, 2016, each plan for transporting a minimum of 20 tons of freight to the ISS.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this is "the biggest boost yet for commercial investment in outer space." Saying further "that it also could be the ultimate risk in government outsourcing." More from Delmarva Now, The Richmond Times Dispatch, The Washington Post, NASA SpaceSpaceflight.com and The Space Frontier Foundation. What a super announcement for Virginia's spaceport!