Article Posted on : - Dec 25, 2014

WASHINGTON (PTI): NASA has collaborated with four US companies to develop intra-vehicular activity space suits and new launch vehicle capabilities among other advances in space exploration.

The partnerships build on the success of NASA's commercial spaceflight initiatives to leverage NASA experience and expertise into new capabilities.

The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative is designed to advance private sector development of integrated space capabilities through access to NASA's spaceflight resources and ensure emerging products or services are commercially available to government and customers within approximately the next five years.

ATK Space Systems, in Beltsville, Maryland, is developing space logistics, hosted payload and other space transportation capabilities, NASA said.

Final Frontier Design, in Brooklyn, New York, is developing intra-vehicular activity space suits.

According to NASA, Space Exploration Technologies, in Hawthorne, California, is developing space transportation capabilities that could be used to support missions into deep space.

United Launch Alliance, in Centennial, Colorado, is developing new launch vehicle capabilities to reduce cost and enhance performance.

"Companies in all shapes and sizes are investing their own capital toward innovative commercial space capabilities," said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"These awards demonstrate the diversity and maturity of the commercial space industry. We look forward to working with these partners to advance space capabilities and make them available to NASA and other customers in the coming years," said McAlister.

The Space Act Agreements (SAAs) have no exchange of funds, and each party bears the cost of its participation.

NASA's contributions could include technical expertise, assessments, lessons learned, technologies and data.