PlanetSpace Inc. protested multi-billion-dollar NASA contract awards to Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB] and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, for commercial spacecraft cargo flights to the International Space Station.

(Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, for full story.)

The contracts would be worth $3.5 billion to $6.2 billion to Orbital and SpaceX.

While PlanetSpace is a relatively small firm, it has the biggest contractors on the planet as its subcontractors: The Boeing Co. [BA], Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT], and Alliant Techsystems Inc. [ATK].

That fact raised questions for NASA when it decided instead to award the contracts to Orbital and SpaceX, which are developing commercial orbital transportation services rockets. Those lifters initially would be cargo haulers, but the firms wish to move eventually to transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.

PlanetSpace filed the protest with the Government Accountability Office, the government watchdog that referees contract disputes. GAO attorney David A. Ashen will handle the protest, which has file number 401016.1. Work stoppage on a protested contract is normal until the GAO decides a protest. A decision in this protest is due no later than April 24, according to the umpire agency.

The protest is part of a rising trend, where contract awards are being protested in ever-greater numbers.

The Orbital and SpaceX lifters would help supply the space station, a multi-billion-dollar NASA investment, after the space shuttle fleet is mandated to stop flying next year, and before the next-generation U.S. spacecraft system Orion-Ares begins manned flights in 2015.