14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at NASA announce that they have selected a private space company for negotiations concerning the use of its historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida. This installation was used for launching space shuttles into orbit for several decades.
NASA is currently seeking to convert its aging KSC into a modern space launch complex. This is why the agency is currently seeking private partners for the job. Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) was tapped as the first company to begin negotiations with.
The decision to select SpaceX was announced on Tuesday, December 10, after a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report decided that a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin LLC on September 13 was without merit. The company argued that NASA's competitive selection process favored some proposals for the launch complex over others.
SpaceX is currently working under a $1.9 billion (€1.38 billion) contract with NASA to develop its Falcon 9 medium-lift delivery system and Dragon space capsules (both manned and unmanned), for servicing the International Space Station and sending NASA astronauts in orbit on American-built spacecraft.