NASA more than subcontracted yesterday two companies to resupply the International Space Station after the space shuttle retires in 2010 as now planned. The two firms are Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va. and SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif. the contract is worth approximately $3.5 billion.

 

The move was described as a milestone as the space agency is trying to encourage companies to get more involved in space transport. NASA’s move was also regarded as a surprise because the two companies that won are relatively smaller than giants such as Lockheed Martin of Bethesda and Boeing of Chicago which have been building spacecraft for NASA.

 

Until now NASA was simply using the companies as contractors, but now it is rather asking them to assume almost total control of the spaceflight mission. The move was described as “monumental” by Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations.

 

“It's the contracts we need to keep the space station flying," Gerstenmaier said.

 

Both Orbital Science and SpaceX will be responsible with restocking the ISS with experiments and provisions. Orbital will carry out eight flights and will get about $1.9 billion, while SpaceX will get $1.6 billion for 12 flights.

 

NASA said it left the contract open so if any of the two companies stumbles, another one contractor may step in. However, in case both contractors stumble, the space agency would have to severely cut research in order to cope with the situation.

 

Orbital employs about 3,800 people across the U.S. Its main domain of activity is developing technologies for NASA and working on missile defense systems for the Pentagon. SpaceX was founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, one of the pioneer entrepreneurs to compete in the business of flying cargo.