NASA’s Cargo Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) source selection statement released late Friday found that Orbital ATK [OA] had the lowest price among awardees while Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) had the highest mission suitability score, a key evaluation factor.
The two companies, along with Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC), were awarded contracts for CRS-2, NASA’s follow-on program for delivering cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Orbital ATK and SpaceX were incumbents from the original CRS while SpaceX is also participating in Commercial Crew, NASA’s effort to deliver humans to ISS. Lockheed Martin [LMT] was eliminated May 6 while Boeing [BA] was eliminated Nov. 5.
In his source selection statement dated Jan. 22, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier said Sierra Nevada’s prices were higher than Orbital ATK’s prices, but not as high as SpaceX’s. Gerstenmaier said he considered SpaceX’s proposal to be worth the higher prices due to the company’s unique abort capability, its two launch pads at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and its approach to doing most of the CRS-2 work in-house.
NASA said SpaceX’s high price tag was due to having two separate vehicles with separate production lines as well as vehicle sizes that impact the cargo capacity and number of missions needed per year to deliver the required amount of upmass. SpaceX’s integration prices were lower than Sierra Nevada’s but higher than Orbital ATK’s.
The companies were graded on three evaluation factors: mission suitability, past performance and price. Price was approximately equal to the combination of mission suitability and past performance. Mission suitability was more important than past performance, price was more important than mission suitability while price was more important than past performance.
Of the three proposals, Orbital ATK’s evaluated prices were all the lowest, followed by SNC and then SpaceX. SpaceX had the highest mission suitability overall and rated excellent in both the technical and management subfactors. Orbital ATK and SNC had almost exactly the same total mission suitability scores, although SNC was rated excellent in the more heavily-weighted technical subfactor while Orbital ATK was rated very good. In the next most important subfactor, management, Orbital ATK was rated excellent and SNC was rated very good. All three offerors were rated as a high level of confidence in past performance.
Under mission suitability, technical approach was most heavily rated with 65 percent of possible points. SpaceX’s proposal received 922 points in mission suitability from the source evaluation board (SEB) while Orbital ATK’s proposal got 880 points and Sierra Nevada 879. Gerstenmaier liked SpaceX’s two standard missions, which both provide pressurized cargo delivery and return as well as unpressurized cargo delivery and disposal. One mission type docked and the other berthed to ISS.
Gerstenmaier said he thought Orbital ATK’s delays on CRS and Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) were significant, but that the company had been responsive in trying to identify and resolve the problems and mitigate future risk. He also found Orbital ATK has managed the repairs at Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island Flight Facility, Va., well and provided an acceptable plan for continuing to perform the rest of the CRS contract.
SpaceX also had its own “significant” CRS launch failure, but Gerstenmaier viewed it as not the only aspect of the company’s performance and that it had successfully completed many other CRS missions. He also took into consideration SpaceX’s more recent work on relevant contracts and as well as its work on Commercial Crew, calling it “solid.”
Gerstenmaier appreciated the “strength” of Sierra Nevada’s milestone payments, which he said reduced NASA’s financial risk by tying payments to a higher level of mission completion. However, Gerstenmaier was concerned by a weakness for a lengthy lead time on authority to proceed (ATP) for a mission, which he said necessitated authorizing work on several missions prior to completion of certain ISS integration milestones. Gerstenmaier’s concern was not based on the number of months of ATP lead time, but on the amount of technical development work to be done for the first mission within that time frame.
The total amount of all task orders under all contracts was not to exceed $14 billion. The guaranteed minimum value for any contract is six missions. CRS-2 missions are not expected to occur until October 2019.