NASA this past week unveiled plans to award up to $400 million in total to as many as four companies.
NASA this past week unveiled the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) project, with plans to award up to $400 million in total to as many as four companies in the fourth quarter of 2021 to begin development on private space stations.
The agency is seeking to replicate the success of its Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew programs. Those programs saw three companies take over for NASA as its means of sending cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.
NASA has already transferred some responsibilities to private companies, with the agency paying SpaceX and Northrop Grumman to send cargo spacecraft to the ISS, as well as SpaceX and Boeing to launch astronauts. In a briefing, NASA commercial LEO director Phil McAlister highlighted that previously, NASA had full ownership of all three activities.
“If it were to always remain that way, our aspirations in low Earth orbit would always be limited by the size of NASA’s budget,” McAlister said Tuesday. “By bringing the private sector into these sections and into these areas, as suppliers and users, you expand the pot, and you have more people in low Earth orbit.”
