NASA has stated the names of four commercial aerospace firms that it has selected in order to help it develop new space capabilities.
The agency’s Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities is in line with these firms to participate in NASA’s several commercial efforts.
This program is initially intended to benefit from the working know how and the infrastructure of these private sector companies by giving them selected access to resources and technologies NASA has developed since the early days of its inception way back in 1958.
NASA selected the following four companies.
• ATK Space Systems from Beltsville, Maryland. This company is working on enhancing space logistics and also developing space transportation capabilities.
• Final Frontier Design from Brooklyn, New York. It is developing space suits that are involved in intra-vehicular activity during space travel.
• SpaceX from Hawthorne, California. This company has been developing launch capabilities that would be used in supporting missions to outer space as well as to the International Space Station ISS.
• United Launch Alliance which is housed in Centennial, Colorado, has also been working on new launch vehicles, the primary objective of which is reducing mission costs and enhancing performance.
It has been hoped that these companies in collaboration with NASA would be able to create services and products in order to support the country’s space program within 5 years or so.
