Displaying items by tag: COTS (transportation)

Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) is a NASA program to coordinate the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies.

The program was announced on January 18, 2006. NASA has suggested that "Commercial services to ISS will be necessary through at least 2015."
COTS must be distinguished from the related Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. COTS relates to the development of the vehicles, CRS to the actual deliveries. COTS involves a number of Space Act Agreements, with NASA providing milestone-based payments. COTS does not involve binding contracts.

Falcon 9 is a rocket-powered spaceflight launch system designed and manufactured by SpaceX, headquartered in Hawthorne, California. Both stages of its two-stage-to-orbit vehicle use liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. The Falcon 9 can lift payloads of 13,150 kilograms to low Earth orbit, and 4,850 kilograms to geostationary transfer orbit, which places the Falcon 9 design in the medium-lift range of launch systems.

The Falcon 9 and Dragon combination won a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract from NASA to resupply the International Space Station under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The first commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station launched on October 7, 2012.

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, is a space transport company headquartered in Hawthorne, California, USA.

It was founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 space boosters, both of which are built with a goal of becoming reusable launch vehicles. SpaceX has also launched the Dragon spacecraft to be flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. On 25 May 2012, SpaceX made history as the world's first privately held company to send a cargo load, the Dragon spacecraft, to the International Space Station.

SpaceX designs, tests and fabricates the majority of its components in-house, including the Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco rocket engines used on the Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft. In 2006, NASA awarded the company a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract to design and demonstrate a launch system to resupply cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). On 9 December 2010, the launch of the COTS Demo Flight 1 mission, SpaceX became the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. On 22 May 2012, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carried the unmanned Dragon capsule into space, marking the first time a private company has sent a spacecraft to the space station. The unmanned, cone-shaped capsule became the first privately built and operated vehicle to ever dock to the orbiting outpost.