Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS)/
Commercial Resupply Service (CRS)
Orbital and NASA are expanding their collaboration to jointly develop a new space transportation system. With the award of the Commercial Resupply Service Contract, NASA has taken the next step to ensure a robust logistic capability for the International Space Station (ISS).
Orbital and NASA have been jointly developing a new space transportation system in a three-year COTS cooperative program to demonstrate the capability to provide logistics to the International Space Station (ISS). The COTS program will involve full-scale development and flight demonstration of a commercial cargo delivery system. The COTS system consists of:
• Taurus® II, a new medium-class launch
vehicle being developed
by Orbital
• Cygnus, an advanced maneuvering spacecraft, and
• Several interchangeable modules for pressurized and unpressurized
cargo.
The COTS demonstration mission is scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of 2010.
With the award of the Commercial Resupply Service, NASA has selected Orbital to provide 8 pressurized cargo missions beginning in the latter half of 2011 and running through 2015. For NASA, CRS will provide a U.S.-produced and-operated automated cargo delivery service for ISS logistic support, to complement Russian, European and Japanese ISS cargo vehicles. For CRS, Orbital will utilize its Taurus II, Cygnus, and a Pressurized Cargo Module developed by Orbital’s industrial partner Thales Alenia Space.
Orbital will carry out design, manufacturing and test of the new Taurus II launch vehicle in Dulles, VA and Chandler, AZ; the company’s development, production and integration of its Cygnus spacecraft and cargo modules will be done in Dulles VA and the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. COTS/CRS launches are planned at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility with integrated mission operations conducted from control centers in Dulles and Houston.
The Taurus II launch vehicle will have a payload capacity of 4,750 to 6,250 Kg to low-Earth orbits (depending on altitude and inclination). The Cygnus spacecraft will be capable of delivering up to 2,700 Kg of pressurized or unpressurized cargo to the ISS, and will be capable of returning up to 1,200 Kg of cargo from ISS to Earth.
