NASA’s CCDev selection process produced at least one big surprise relating to the space agency’s actions on funding rockets. Consider the differences in these two proposals:

• One company proposed to continue work on a project that NASA has already funded to human-rate a pair of highly-reliable rockets that at least three companies want to use to launch their commercial spacecraft.
• The other bidder wanted funds to build a new new booster that has never flown and which no one had agreed to use.

So, which one did NASA fund?

Neither.

Confused? You’re not the only one. Welcome to the wonderful world of NASA contract awards.

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Osama bin Laden is dead. Some closure at last. And a flood of memories of what I saw through my apartment windows almost a decade ago. America: A Tribute to Heroes Sept. 21, 2001 Pentagon Memorial October 2001

No Launch Attempt Monday, Teams to Replace APU Heater Power Box
Sun, 01 May 2011 07:01:10 AM PDT

Technicians and engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are narrowing in on the likely source of what caused heaters on a fuel line for space shuttle Endeavour’s auxiliary power unit-1 (APU-1) to fail on Friday and scrubbing the first launch attempt for the STS-134 mission. But because of work associated with fixing the problem, launch teams will not be able to make a launch attempt tomorrow. Teams will meet Monday and are expected to determine a new “no earlier than” next launch attempt for Endeavour at that time.

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Parabolic Arc’s Week in Review…. Space Tourism Turns Ten: The space community celebrated the 10th anniversary of the first private spaceflight by Dennis Tito. Since that time, six other millionaires have followed on seven government space missions (Charles Simonyi flew twice).  Truly private sector spaceflight — using its own vehicles — is still waiting in the wings. Two Steps Forward, One Back. In Mojave, SpaceShipTwo made its sixth glide flight […]

Space Adventures Hosts Tele-conference to Announce Circumlunar Mission Developments and Market Outlook for Orbital Spaceflight WHAT: As we celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Dennis Tito’s pioneering orbital spaceflight, please join Eric Anderson and Richard Garriott as they outline the future of private exploration and announce new developments regarding the company’s circumlunar mission. Space Adventures, the only company that has provided human space missions to the global marketplace, became world […]

Parabolic Arc is undergoing some upgrades in order to deal with some performance issues. We are shifting it over to new server arrangement that should increase the site’s reliability. The change has solved a problem readers were having in posting comments on the site. I apologize for the difficulties you all have been having over the last couple of weeks. It took longer than we expected to fix it. The […]

NASA PR — Shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach stated that Endeavour’s launch will be no earlier than Monday at 2:33 p.m. EDT. Engineers need that time to troubleshoot an issue that resulted in today’s launch scrub.

During today’s countdown, engineers detected a failure in one of two heater circuits associated with Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) 1. Heaters are required to keep the APUs’ hydrazine from freezing on orbit. Attempts to activate the heater were not successful and engineers now believe the problem might be associated with a Load Control Assembly, which is a switchbox, located in the aft end of Endeavour, or an electrical short in the wires leading into or out of the switchbox.
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As expected, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has fired Roscosmos Head Anatoly Perminov, ending his seven-year reign as head of the Russian space program. The dismissal, officially because Perminov was about the exceed the 65 year age limit for government officials, came after an embarrassing series of failures and harsh criticism that Roscosmos was falling behind on key projects. His departure was announced earlier this month. Putin appointed former First Deputy […]

Video Caption: Today the Morpheus team attempted a hover test under tether. This test was the next incremental step in a series of planned tests leading to free flight. Among previous tests were component tests, subsystem tests, integrated vehicle tests, and in the last week successful strap down engine ignition and firing tests. The particular test today was intended to demonstrate a 40 second engine firing while maintaining altitude of […]

I’ve done a deep dive into NASA’s selection process for its CCDev 2 awards. NASA chose eight finalists for due diligence and made four awards totaling $269.3 million, all largely focused on human vehicles. Today, I’ll be examining the six finalists that applied for funding to build commercial crew spacecraft. The information below comes from the Selection Statement signed by Philip McAlister, acting director of Commercial Spaceflight Development, which provides an in-depth description of the evaluation and award processes.

CCDev 2 Applications Selected for Due Diligence and Awards

Company	Project	CCDev 2 Technical Approach Rating	CCDev2 Business Information Rating	CCDev 1 Awards	CCDev 2 Awards	Total CCDev Awards
The Boeing Company	CST-100 Crew Vehicle			$18 million	$92.3 million	$110.3 million
SpaceX	Human-rated Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft			0	$75 million	$75 million
Sierra Nevada Corporation	Dream Chaser Spacecraft			$20 million	$80 million	$100 million
Blue Origin	Orbital Crew Vehicle			$3.7 million	$22 million	$25.7 million
Orbital Sciences Corporation	Prometheus Spacecraft			0	0	0
Excalibur Almaz	Orbital Crew Vehicle			0	0	0
TOTAL:						$311 million

Ratings Key
	Very High Level of Confidence
	High Level of Confidence
	Moderate Level of Confidence
	Low Level of Confidence
	Very Low Level of Confidence

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Officials from NASA and the four CCDev 2 winners held at press conference at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday morning to discuss the awards and where the companies are heading with their programs over the next year. The event had a fascinating mood to it as NASA and its partners looked forward while soon-to-be-laid-off workers prepared Endeavour for the penultimate flight of the space shuttle program set for the following day.

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