Each mission is expected to take about a month; it takes about five days for the Cygnus to make it to the station, it will stay there for anywhere from two weeks to two months, and it will take another day or two for the spacecraft to disintegrate on reentry. "The idea of now relying on private industry and let[ting] them lead the way has already been decided," said Marco A. Caceres, director of space studies at the Teal Group. "The question is: Can industry do it without too many failures?" He said Orbital's success, along with that of SpaceX, which has already made it to the space station, would provide the needed competition and potentially open the door to more companies. "There's a lot at stake here because you're really talking about the future of human spaceflight. It's not going to be NASA that does it," said Caceres. "It's these companies ... that are supposedly going to be colonizing the moon and maybe even Mars."

The State Department is pursuing "all available options," including administrative penalties, to compel Thales Alenia Space to disclose any U.S.-made parts in eight communications satellites it sold to China, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs David Adams told Congress. The department's options include withholding licenses the company needs as prime contractor on a $3 billion program to build 81 satellites for Iridium Communications Inc. (IRDM), according to Marco Caceres, a military and civilian space analyst. He said that could postpone Iridium's plans to launch the first of the new satellites in 36 months and possibly force the company to find a U.S. contractor to take over the program. "If they delay it by six months, Iridium needs to do it sooner rather than later," Caceres of the Fairfax, Virginia- based Teal Group, said in an interview.

Aerospace experts who reviewed the footage said the size of the plume suggests it was a large military rocket or missile. "The launch of a rocket that size doesn't belong to any commercial entity without them issuing a press release," said Marco Caceres, analyst with Teal Group Corp., a Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace research firm. "It can't belong to anyone but the military."

The increased focus on commercial-style contractors has earned plaudits from free-market advocates such as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who say NASA is too bureaucratic. These advocates say the new plan will shake up NASA’s management and spur the development of cheaper launchers for getting people into space. “My sense is that the administration is pretty set on this, and industry probably knows it’s a done deal,” said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst for the Teal Group, a market research firm in Fairfax, Va. “It doesn’t do Boeing or Lockheed any good to anger the Obama administration, because the serious money for these companies is not in NASA, it’s in the defense department,” he said.

Marco Caceres, a senior space analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, said the Pentagon has been lucky that the current GPS systems have lasted so long, but they now need to be replaced. “You’re fighting two wars,” he said. “You have military troops all over that have to communicate, and they’re dependent on satellites.” The newest GPS program will be closely watched, as the Pentagon’s space programs have long suffered cost overruns, problematic technologies and delays. John Young, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said he has directed the Air Force to tie the contractor’s payments to “specific program accomplishments,” not to adjust the scope of the program or change its technical specifications and to “consider solutions which lower cost or risk to deliver within or below budget.”

The oversight efforts, Young said, are part of “continuing a DoD push to award fees more carefully and on a more objective basis.” Of the Pentagon’s eight biggest satellite programs, all are over budget, from at least 20 percent over to more than double the original price, Caceres said. That includes a missile detection and warning satellite system made by Lockheed. “DoD is always looking for the latest technology for its satellites,” Caceres said. “The problem is that technology develops quickly but the development of the satellite itself takes a while. By the time it gets to its maturity, you realize there’s more advanced technology out there, so you add that at the last minute, and it leads to higher costs.”