The Last Mile

Charles Miller of Constellation Services is talking about COTS and servicing ISS. He’s discussing the difficulty of the certification process to be allowed to dock to ISS. Their solution was to use Russian hardware that had already been allowed to do it, using an “intermodal transportation” approach.

Their idea is to use Progress as a “tug” and cargo containers that look like a station in terms of the interface, for a “plug’n’play” system. He’s apparently presenting their COTS approach. (I should note that today’s Space.com says that Charles is unhappy at not being selected for COTS, and some (though not necessarily Charles ) think that NASA doesn’t take either COTS, or the station resupply problem seriously.)

Go read the link for background, but his bottom line is that they’re still offering ISS cargo delivery to NASA, even if they don’t get any of the COTS development money.