Commercial Crew Development.-CCDev2 winners.

clln

In the last few hours NASA has announced the four of eight shortlisted winners of funding towards the next generation of Spacecrafts competing to be the next provider of Low Earth Orbit Manned Spacecrafts.
the main purpose of these crafts at least to begin with will be to replace the realiance of Russia's Soyuz to launch Americans to the International Space Station:
CCDev2 will cover fourteen months and the money will only be paid if they reach the milestones they have set themselves.

The selectees for CCDev2 awards are:
-- Blue Origin, Kent, Wash., $22 million
-- Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $80 million
-- Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $75 million
-- The Boeing Company, Houston, $92.3 million

Blue Origin is the biggest surprise as because of the secrecy surrounding these competing companies,it is by far the most secretive, all that seems to be known about its plans is this diagram of its proposed manned capsule:


Space-X did not receive funding in CCDev1,but seem to have been rewarded for their great sucess so far with its falcon 9 test launchs as well as being the first private company to re-enter a Capsule (Dragon) and recover it.
Space-X are the only one of the four who do not intend to use the Atlas launcher to begin with.

Sierra Nevada's Corp's Dreamchaser is the one that appeals to me the most!

The Dream Chaser Shuttle from SNC Space Systems

http://www.engineeringtv.com/video/The-Dream-Chaser-Shuttle-from-S;National-Space-Symposium-2011-V

Boeings CST-100 does not look too bad either;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn_gXEK5XmQ

Boeing video animation of the CST-100 crew transportation vehicle being designed with Bigelow Aerospace under NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. The seven-crew CST-100 is bigger than the Apollo capsule, but smaller than NASA's Orion, and is designed to be launched by a range of rockets incoluding Atlas IV, Delta V and Falcon 9.Video shows the capsule operating with Bigelow's planned inflatable-module Orbital Space Complex.

No surprise that Orbital Science lost out as they Lost the Glory Spacecraft a short while ago when their TaurasXL nose cone did not seperate leaving the payload too heavy to reach orbit.
Glory was the second craft that ended up in the Ocean,,both were to study Earths Climate,and both were lost because of the very same fault on the TaurasXL!:rolleyes:

United Launch Alliance got nothing,they are responsible for the ATLAS-5,but are doing very nicely anyway with 25 problem free launchs of the Atlas since they took over its operations.

NASA are now supposed to concentrate on the Beyond Earth Orbit Heavy Launch Vehicle, renamed Space Launch System after Constellation was cancelled.
It is supposed to be ready in 2016 but NASA say they have not a hope of reaching that goal under present funding.
they are also supposed to continue with the development of the Orion Manned capsule but most experts say that Orion will slowly fade away if the private companies succeed in a safe capsule.

Blue Origin issued a statement about their ambitious plans since they learned of the award

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=28803

AugustusMinimus

Blue Origin seems to be a complete mystery alright.

Considering Dragon and CST-100 can be launched via a Falcon 9, is there any prospect of Dream Chaser being launched by a Falcon 9 or will it be too heavy.

I'm with you, Dream Chaser should be the prefered option on the basis of it being a controlled landing and less G's on the spacecraft on re-entry. Will prob be more expensive to launch though ?

clln

Two of the eight shortlisted Candidates that lost out have not given up!

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/10ccdevrockets/

Beeker

clln wrote: »

Two of the eight shortlisted Candidates that lost out have not given up!

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/10ccdevrockets/

Its going to get interesting!:)