NASA has extended three contracts with companies to continue providing transportation of cargo to and from the International Space Station through the projected end of the station’s life in 2030.
“There are no other CRS-2 certified visiting vehicles in the current marketplace for providing cargo resupply to the ISS,” NASA stated in a document justifying the extension of the three contracts. “Extension of the existing contracts is the most effective means of ensuring continued provision of these services for the extended duration of the ISS.”
NASA did, as part of the March 2023 announcement, seek information from companies who believed that they could carry out cargo transportation to the station. The agency said it received three responses, but concluded none of the companies could meet its requirements.
One response came from Gravitics, a company developing modules for future commercial space stations, including one called StarMax. “The response does not provide a description of an end-to-end cargo service capable of reaching, attaching, and departing the ISS, but suggests a next generation launch vehicle could get it to low Earth orbit,” NASA’s document states of StarMax.
A second response came from The Exploration Company, a European startup developing cargo return spacecraft. NASA noted that the company does not qualify as a “United States commercial provider” under federal law. “The 20-month-old company based in Munich, Germany does not meet this nor the other restrictions in the CRS-2 contract regarding certain foreign purchases and export control,” NASA stated. Other details about its proposal are redacted.
A third response came from GEPA Logistics, which NASA described as a British company that handles land, sea and air cargo transportation but does not appear to have any experience in space transportation. “GEPA Logistics’ capabilities statement lacked any description of a spaceflight capability that would provide end-to-end cargo services with low earth orbit capability to the ISS,” NASA stated.
The use of commercial companies in providing logistics to space-based infrastructure, both existing and new development space-based builds can be viewed as an extension of what most think of as terrestrial based supply chain cyber security risks. Systems that are built / assembled in space are subject to greater risk with respect to supply chain threats as opposed to terrestrial based assembly.
As an example, the ISS used pre-integrated truss structures during its assembly phase in the 1990s. The pre-integrated truss structures were attached together robotically with the stations’ robotics arm. Had tampering with a segment of the truss supply chain occurred on ground, space -based mitigation would have been more difficult than mitigation strategies used on ground.
The use of multi-contractor commercial sources as contributors in logistics flights increases the complexity of the supply chain by exposing logistics chain to an increased potential attack surface. This example illustrates the importance of taking appropriate measures in protecting ground-based supply chains that are bound for space applications.
Sources: NASA extends ISS cargo contracts through 2030 – SpaceNews