Cuts Funding, Issues Notice Of Default
After months of discussions between
the two entities, last week officials at NASA sent notice to
Oklahoma City-based Rocketplane Kistler, issuing a default letter
which cuts off future funding on its portion of a $500 million
development contract signed with the private spaceflight company
last year.
The Wall Street Journal reports the space agency sent
Rocketplane Kistler the notice Friday, after the company missed two
scheduled development milestones as part of its Commercial Orbital
Transportation System (COTS) contract. As ANN reported, the company
was awarded a contract in August 2006 to develop a low-cost system
to transport cargo -- and, ultimately, crewmembers -- to the
International Space Station.
Officials with NASA and Rocketplane Kistler stressed the default
letter does not represent the formal cancellation of the contract
-- but it does give the agency the option of doing exactly that
after 30 days, and the writing would appear to be on the wall for
RpK.
"As a result of a review of that performance, NASA decided that
further efforts by the company are not in the agency's interest,"
agency spokeswoman Beth Dickey told MSNBC this week.
Rocketplane Kistler tried earlier this year to secure $500
million in private financing to continue development of its K-1
launch vehicle -- one of the two missed milestones of the COTS
agreement. Despite the lure of a lucrative NASA contract, however,
the company was unable to score the needed cash.
RpK Chairman George French told the Journal "we're looking at
all the possible ways to cure the deficiency" noted in NASA's
default letter.
Rival commercial launch ventures -- including another COTS
winner, Space Exploration Technologies -- have also found it
difficult to earn private funding, according to industry experts
cited by the WSJ.
Under terms of the COTS development contract, SpaceX and RpK
shared in the $500 million allocated by NASA to develop a private
space transportation solution to resupply the ISS, to be used after
NASA retires its space shuttle fleet in 2010.
RpK was allocated $207 million of that money. Dickey said the
company wouldn't have to pay NASA back the money if the contract is
declared void.
There remains the possibility Rocketplane Kistler could hold
onto the contract, Dickey added, if it is able to raise the
necessary private funding over the next month.