NASA Transitions To Commercial Space

Wheel stop for STS-135 (Atlantis) on Thursday will mark the end of the space shuttle program and NASA and its Kennedy Space Center (KSC) are accelerating their transition to the new era of commercial space.

The day before the launch of STS-135, KSC signed a Space Act agreement with Sierra Nevada, which is developing the Dream Chaser spaceplane. The agreement will allow KSC to work with Sierra Nevada to define and execute launch preparations and post-landing activities for Dream Chaser.

Today, three days prior to STS-135’s landing, an unfunded Space Act agreement was signed between NASA and the United Launch Alliance (ULA). ULA is a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that builds and launches the Delta IV and Atlas V families of launch vehicles. The agreement will pave the way for consideration of using the Atlas V as a launch vehicle for future crew spacecraft. Right now, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. are developing new launch vehicles (Falcon 9 and Taurus II) to launch cargo and crews to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the commercial crew program. Some argue that the Atlas V and Delta IV, which already exist and are used to launch spacecraft for critical national security space missions, could be upgraded for human spaceflight, too.