More trouble for the struggling Rocketplane Kistler, once one of the companies favored to provide NASA with interim transportation to the International Space Station after the shuttle fleet retires.
Kistler was recently notified by NASA that it would lose the agency funding, due to the company's inability to meet funding targets. Last week, NASASpaceflight.com reported that the company was protesting the decision, arguing in a letter to the agency that much of Kistler's funding shortage stemmed from NASA's own lack of commitment, which frightened away investors.
Now comes a report from Space News magazine that the company's president and former CEO, Randy Brinkley, has stepped down, and is being replaced by one of the members of the board of directors.
Brinkley had been president of Boeing Satellite Systems before coming to the then-bankrupt Kistler in 2004.
None of this bodes well for the company; but these are the early days of commercial space business. We'll have many more failures and scandals.
At least people are only losing jobs here, not lives.
Kistler President Resigns [Space News]
(Image: Artist's conception of a Rocketplane Kistler craft. Credit: Rocketplane Kistler)
