NASA began a formal process to initiate Phase 2 of the Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS-2, in early 2014. Later that year, an "Industry Day" was held in Houston, with seven high-level requirements disclosed to interested parties.
Requirements The contracts were expected to include a variety of requirements: SNC's proposal would use a cargo version of its
Dream Chaser crew vehicle, the 'Dream Chaser Cargo System'. The proposed cargo Dream Chaser included an additional expendable cargo module for uplift and trash disposal. Downmass would only be provided via the Dream Chaser spaceplane itself.
Lockheed Martin proposed a new cargo spacecraft called
Jupiter, derived from the designs of the NASA's
MAVEN and
Juno spacecraft. It would have included a robotic arm based on
Canadarm technology and a diameter cargo transport module called
Exoliner based on the
Automated Transfer Vehicle, to be jointly developed with
Thales Alenia Space.
Awards in development, 2013 drop-test preparations shown When NASA issued the Commercial Resupply Services phase 2 (CRS-2) request for proposal (RFP) in September 2014, it received interest from five companies: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX. NASA made a competitive range determination to remove Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Three companies were awarded contracts on January 14, 2016. The maximum potential value of all the contracts was indicated to be $14 billion, but the minimum value is considerably less. CRS-2 launches commenced in 2019 and will extend to at least 2024. NASA officials explained that selecting three companies rather than two for CRS-2 increases cargo capabilities and ensures more redundancy in the event of a contractor failure or schedule delay. Three more CRS-2 missions for Dragon 2 covering up to CRS-29 were announced in December 2020, and six more were awarded in 2022 covering up to CRS-35. The contracts were then extended to 2030. Northrop Grumman having purchased Orbital ATK were awarded 2 more
Cygnus flights in 2020 and 6 more in 2022 covering up to NG-35 which will provide resupply services to the station through 2026. Inside-cargo is typically transported to and from the space station in "the form factor of single
Cargo Transfer Bag Equivalent (CTBE) [which is the] unit for size of bag used to transport cargo from
visiting vehicles, CTBE units are also used to
price, and charge, commercial users of
US Orbital Segment stowage space. == CRS-2 flights ==