User:Craigboy/CRS

Commercial Resupply Services are contracts signed by NASA for the delivery of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) by American commercial firms. The contracts include a minimum of 12 missions for SpaceX and 8 missions for Orbital Sciences.

The Dragon cargo capsule is launched by the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Cygnus cargo carrier will be launched by the Antares (aka Taurus II) rocket from Launch Pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), Wallops Island, Virginia.

History
The selection of the firms resupplying the space station was publicly discussed by NASA on December 22, 2008.

NASA announced the awarding of contracts to both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation in a press conference on December 23, 2008. PlanetSpace submitted a protest to the Government Accountability Office after receiving a NASA debriefing on the outcome of the award. On April 22, 2009 GAO publicly released its decision to deny the protest.

SpaceX launched their first Falcon 9 rocket and a mock-up Dragon capsule successfully on June 4, 2010. Their first flight contracted by NASA, COTS Demo Flight 1, took place on 8 December 2010, demonstrating the Dragon capsule's multiple orbit capability, ability to receive and respond to ground commands, and ability to gain and maintain directional alignment with NASA's TDRSS narrow-band satellite communication system which is used in conjunction with all manned spaceflight to the International Space Station. On 15 August 2011 SpaceX announced NASA had combined the mission objectives of the COTS Demo Flight 2 and 3 missions into a single mission, with the COTS 3 validation tests beginning only if all of the COTS 2 objectives were successfully demonstrated first.

The COTS Demo Flight 2+ mission successfully launched on 22 May 2012, delivered cargo to the ISS and on 31 May, landed in the Pacific and was recovered. On August 23, 2012, NASA announced that SpaceX had successfully completed its COTS Space Act Agreement and NASA certified SpaceX to begin their CRS contracted spaceflights.

The launch vehicles and cargo carriers were developed using Space Act Agreements under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.

SpaceX
The first CRS mission, SpaceX CRS-1, was scheduled for October 8, 2012 at 00:35 UTC from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. It is the first of 12 planned resupply mission. CRS-1 successfully took off on Monday October 8, 2012 at 03:03:52 AM GMT, achieved orbit and is now berthed to the ISS.

Missions
''List includes only currently manifested missions. All SpaceX CRS missions are currently scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40. Launch dates are listed in UTC.''

Orbital Sciences
Orbital Sciences rolled out their Antares rocket to the launchpad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in October 2012 in preparation for an on-pad hot-fire test of the rocket at the beginning of November 2012. The rocket will be launched about a month after a successful hot-fire with a test payload. The Orbital Sciences' demo mission to the ISS is scheduled for 2013.

Missions
''List includes only currently manifested missions. All Orbital Sciences CRS missions are currently planned to be launched from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Launch Pad 0A.''