The contract, issued last Friday by United Space Alliance, joins the Lockheed Martin-Rockwell-Boeing consortium with the Hampton, Va. firm Spacetec. Spacetec is to "identify candidate payloads" for flight on the Shuttle, and provide comprehensive "products, services, and expertise to a wide range of both domestic and international payload customers." The two firms will work together to develop mission models "and competitive mission capabilities and pricing policies."

From 1981 to 1986 the Shuttle fleet carried commercial satellites and platforms, a major reason for its development. But following the destruction of the orbiter Challenger in 1986, U.S. policy was modified by the Reagan administration, dropping commercial craft from the Shuttle's manifest and mandating the use of the reusable vehicles only when its unique requirements were needed, or only when the Shuttle was needed for national security military missions. In 1991, the military in effect left the Shuttle for the Titan IV booster, citing the Shuttle's high cost and, at the time, difficulty in meeting launch schedules. In the six years since, the Shuttle's launch history has markedly improved, and NASA as well as the USA group have actively sought military business for the Shuttles. One new military Shuttle flight, a mapping mission set for 2001, was cut from the FY98 Defense budget.

Commercial launch providers both in the U.S. and abroad have long complained about using the Space Shuttle for commercial missions, saying that the U.S. taxpayer was in effect subsidizing the vehicle's cost- which left commercial companies unable to compete against. With NASA under increasing pressure to commercialize the Shuttles, freeing up budget dollars now spent for operational cost, it seems USA may well believe that the only way to make a Shuttle "buck" is to return to the commercial space world.