spacetoday.net: Two ventures win Space Act agreements with NASA

Posted: Sat, Feb 3, 2007, 5:55 AM ET (1055 GMT)
t/Space CXV illustration (t/Space)

Two new companies attempting to develop vehicles that could transport cargo and passengers to and from the ISS have signed Space Act agreements with NASA to support their development, the space agency announced this week. NASA signed the agreements with Transformational Space LLC (t/Space) of Virginia and PlanetSpace of Chicago, two companies that are currently in the early stages of development of orbital transport systems. The agreements do not provide either company with any money, but do give them access to NASA expertise and also establish milestones by which the two companies can gauge their progress. Last year NASA did provide nearly $500 million to two other companies, SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler, that are developing similar systems; t/Space was one of the finalists in that earlier competition. PlanetSpace is a Canadian-American venture that is developing a vehicle that could launch from a new spaceport to be developed at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. NASA hopes that one or more of these companies will be able to provide commercial access to the station by the end of the decade, allowing NASA to purchase rides to and from the station once the shuttle is retired.