NASA approves SpaceX’s Starship to bid for some launch contracts
NASA yesterday announced that it has added SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket to its launch services program, thereby allowing the company to bid that rocket for some launch contracts.
The NLS II contracts are multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032. The contracts include an on-ramp provision that provides an opportunity annually for new launch service providers to add their launch service on an NLS II contract and compete for future missions and allows existing contractors to introduce launch services not currently on their NLS II contracts.
This change is mostly bureaucratic in nature. SpaceX has not won a Starship launch contract from NASA. It has only been given the opportunity to bid that rocket in the future.
What is significant about this announcement is the change it signals in the way NASA’s bureaucracy functions. In the past these service contracts at NASA (and at the Pentagon) were routinely used to limit who could bid. NASA had to approve your company, and if it decided you weren’t good enough, or maybe didn’t like your politics, or possibly you weren’t one of the old-time big space companies the bureaucrats were buddies with, you stood no chance of getting in the game. For example, SpaceX had to sue the military when it would only allow ULA to bid while blocking any and all competitors.
These limits never made any sense. The best thing any customer can do is consider the products of as many businesses as possible, in order to get the best deal.
NASA decision here suggests its bureaucracy and management is loosening things up. Starship/Superheavy is not yet ready to put payloads in orbit, but this decision makes it possible for it to begin doing so, as soon as possible. No need to wait until it is 100% operational. NASA can now consider using it as a cheap way to launch some high risk missions during the testing period.
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NASA yesterday announced that it has added SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket to its launch services program, thereby allowing the company to bid that rocket for some launch contracts.
The NLS II contracts are multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032. The contracts include an on-ramp provision that provides an opportunity annually for new launch service providers to add their launch service on an NLS II contract and compete for future missions and allows existing contractors to introduce launch services not currently on their NLS II contracts.
This change is mostly bureaucratic in nature. SpaceX has not won a Starship launch contract from NASA. It has only been given the opportunity to bid that rocket in the future.
What is significant about this announcement is the change it signals in the way NASA’s bureaucracy functions. In the past these service contracts at NASA (and at the Pentagon) were routinely used to limit who could bid. NASA had to approve your company, and if it decided you weren’t good enough, or maybe didn’t like your politics, or possibly you weren’t one of the old-time big space companies the bureaucrats were buddies with, you stood no chance of getting in the game. For example, SpaceX had to sue the military when it would only allow ULA to bid while blocking any and all competitors.
These limits never made any sense. The best thing any customer can do is consider the products of as many businesses as possible, in order to get the best deal.
NASA decision here suggests its bureaucracy and management is loosening things up. Starship/Superheavy is not yet ready to put payloads in orbit, but this decision makes it possible for it to begin doing so, as soon as possible. No need to wait until it is 100% operational. NASA can now consider using it as a cheap way to launch some high risk missions during the testing period.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Starship could be made operational very quickly with an expendable upper stage. This can be tested in the same way Falcon Heavy was. Even as it is now, the only thing really needed is to get Starship version 2 in orbit with a functional means to deploy payloads. They are probably within 6 months of the first operational starlink launch. Version 2 landings are nice, but not required in the near term. The timetable for the moon lander version of starship is much more questionable.
Musk hated having to have a hot-staging ring—going down a simple expendable route is simply against his religion.
The so-called Senate Launch System looks to have a better engineer in Shelby than Starship has with Rand.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57014.msg2673228#msg2673228
The Arty II LV is stacked:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hEHfeyrZIK4
Now I hear scuttlebutt as to there being to SH catch attempt for the next flight.
Well, I mean, yeah. Because an expendable rocket is going to be a lot more expensive to operate, Jeff! And even SpaceX’s resources have their limits.
We know what SpaceX has managed to achieve with Falcon 9. Why don’t we give them a little longer on Starship’s development before we start writing epitaphs like this?
Yeah Jeff, they’ve dropped a couple of hundred engines in the drink. That’s a lot of bucks, almost as much as one of the SSMEs on the SLS..