NASA Awards Cargo Contracts for International Space Station

As promised last October, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Thursday awarded resupply contracts for the International Space Station. The agency had promised a decision by the end of January and it let it be known that Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) was no longer in the running to get the award.

Contracts worth a total of $14 billion were awarded to Orbital ATK Inc. (NYSE: OA), Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Sierra Nevada for a term beginning this year and running through 2024.

The contract, called Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2 in the lingo) was intended to award contracts to one or more companies for six or more flights per contract. As with current resupply flights, these missions would launch from U.S. spaceports, and the contracted services would include logistical and research cargo delivery and return to and from the space station. The contracts were awarded on an as-needed basis and payment will depend on the type of mission NASA orders.
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According to the press announcement:

NASA has not yet ordered any missions, but will make a total of six selections from each menu of mission options at fixed prices, as needed. Each task order has milestones with specified amounts and performance dates. Each mission requires complex preparation and several years of lead time. Discussions and engineering assessments will begin soon, leading to integration activities later this year to ensure all space station requirements are met, with the first missions beginning in late 2019.

Orbital ATK and SpaceX shared the first resupply contract, which ends this year. Orbital’s contract was valued at $1.9 billion and the SpaceX contract was valued at $1.6 billion.