NASA Wary of Bid Protests in Developing Heavy-lift Approach

摘要

As NASA hashes out an acqui-sition strategy for building a con-gressionally mandated heavy-lift launch vehicle that leverages space shuttle and Ares rocket technologies, agency officials are hoping to minimize the potential for a formal protest from industry.Douglas Cooke, head of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate here, said officials are still formulating plans for the Space Launch Sys-tem that lawmakers directed NASA to start work on this year. In addition to settling on a final design, the agency is sorting through different contracting mechanisms for procuring the heavy-lift vehicle.