With the failure of RpK’s efforts to design and build a reliable, scheduled crew and cargo craft that can service the International Space Station, a new contender for supply missions has emerged - one which may yet qualify for COTS seed money.
This new potential COTS competitor is Planetspace Inc, a Chicago based aerospace, engineering firm, with solid connections to established aviation giants such as Lockheed Martin and Alliant Tech Systems (ATK). Using the expertise gained from such connections, Planetspace Inc have now come up with a design for ISS re-supply; dubbed the Modular Cargo Carrier, the new craft will be boosted to orbit atop a primary rocket designed and built by ATK: Once in orbit the MCC will docking with the space station’s common berthing port to begin unloading supplies and other precious cargo.
Chirinjeev Kathuria, Planetspace’s CEO was reported to have told reporters: ‘ We’re very comfortable and confident that NASA is going to have a low-cost, very reliable cargo and crew transport to the space station’.
With $175 million in COTS money still available for private commercial, payload and rocket development, it is clear that something of a bidding war is opening up in the clamour to produce a reliable private craft with which to meet US Space Shuttle retirement in 2010. SPACEHAB, a rival aerospace firm headquartered in Houston are also reported to be pursuing the NASA seed corn funds; the company has its own spacecraft, dubbed Arcturus, a craft which SPACEHAB hope to boost to orbit onboard modified Delta 4 and Atlas V rockets.
The Modular Cargo Carrier is not the only project that Planetspace Inc are working on. If the MCC can offer orbital cargo flights, then the company’s Silver Dart sub orbital glider (if built) will offer passengers the chance to view Earth’s curvature from extremely high altitudes. Based upon the US Airforce’s Flight Dynamics Laboratory 7, the Silver Dart ( see top picture) is a knife shaped space plane that will be kicked into sub orbit by a similar booster to what ATK are designing for the company’s Modular Cargo Carrier. Cape Breton in Nova Scotia has been selected for future Silver Dart flights, Kathuria adds: ‘We’re continuing down that development very strongly in terms of developing the FDL-7 for what we call cargo express or space tourism’.
Whether the Silver Dart ever becomes a physical reality or not, it is certainly one of the more unusual designs to have graced the imagination of a space craft developer.
This new potential COTS competitor is Planetspace Inc, a Chicago based aerospace, engineering firm, with solid connections to established aviation giants such as Lockheed Martin and Alliant Tech Systems (ATK). Using the expertise gained from such connections, Planetspace Inc have now come up with a design for ISS re-supply; dubbed the Modular Cargo Carrier, the new craft will be boosted to orbit atop a primary rocket designed and built by ATK: Once in orbit the MCC will docking with the space station’s common berthing port to begin unloading supplies and other precious cargo.
Chirinjeev Kathuria, Planetspace’s CEO was reported to have told reporters: ‘ We’re very comfortable and confident that NASA is going to have a low-cost, very reliable cargo and crew transport to the space station’.
With $175 million in COTS money still available for private commercial, payload and rocket development, it is clear that something of a bidding war is opening up in the clamour to produce a reliable private craft with which to meet US Space Shuttle retirement in 2010. SPACEHAB, a rival aerospace firm headquartered in Houston are also reported to be pursuing the NASA seed corn funds; the company has its own spacecraft, dubbed Arcturus, a craft which SPACEHAB hope to boost to orbit onboard modified Delta 4 and Atlas V rockets.
The Modular Cargo Carrier is not the only project that Planetspace Inc are working on. If the MCC can offer orbital cargo flights, then the company’s Silver Dart sub orbital glider (if built) will offer passengers the chance to view Earth’s curvature from extremely high altitudes. Based upon the US Airforce’s Flight Dynamics Laboratory 7, the Silver Dart ( see top picture) is a knife shaped space plane that will be kicked into sub orbit by a similar booster to what ATK are designing for the company’s Modular Cargo Carrier. Cape Breton in Nova Scotia has been selected for future Silver Dart flights, Kathuria adds: ‘We’re continuing down that development very strongly in terms of developing the FDL-7 for what we call cargo express or space tourism’.
Whether the Silver Dart ever becomes a physical reality or not, it is certainly one of the more unusual designs to have graced the imagination of a space craft developer.
Images: Planetspace Inc
1 comments:
Interesting to know.
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