Tuesday, January 20, 2009

PlanetSpace Protests Commericial ISS Resupply Contracts

Losing bidder PlanetSpace has filed a protest of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) awards to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp.

Under contracts awarded earlier this month totaling $3.5 billion, SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., and Orbital of Dulles, Va., will launch unpiloted vehicles to deliver pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the International Space Station (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 5).

Chicago-based PlanetSpace, which includes Lockheed Martin, ATK and Boeing, proposed the space shuttle-derived Athena III for station resupply. The protest effectively stops the program until the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) either dismisses or upholds the protest. GAO has 90 days from the filing of the protest to render its ruling.


"Our prices are so cheap you won't believe them!"

The problem is...we don't. At all.

This is the traditional defense contractors in a new guise. EVERYTHING they do is underbid and suffers massive cost overruns.

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