NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun names suborbital spaceflight company selections. Photo Credit/NASA Photo
NASA selected seven emerging commercial suborbital spaceflight services on Tuesday to foster future research under a $10 million two- year Flight Opportunities Program agreement.
The companies include Armadillo Aerospace, of Heath, Tex.; Near Space Corp., of Tillamook, Ore.; Masten Space Systems, of Mojave, Calif.; Up Aerospace Inc., of Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Virgin Galactic, of Mojave, Calif.; Whittinghill Aerospace LLC, of Camarillo, Calif.; and XCOR, Mojave, Calif.
The space agency plans to draw from the entire suborbital pool to perform payload integration as well as flight services. The brief missions will carry a range of science payloads to meet NASA’s research and technology objectives.
Armadillo's unpiloted Aero Super Mod. Photo Credit/Armadillo Aerospace
“Through this catalog approach, NASA is moving toward the goal of making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide range of engineers, scientists and technologists,” said NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun. “The government’s ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA’s future missions in space.”
Artist's illustration of the piloted XCOR Lynx. Photo Credit/XCOR
Initial flights are planned this year.