The Sierra Nevada Corporation, one of four primary commercial space transport outfits competing to carry human crews to the International Space Station, has taken the program's contract awarding process to court.

SNC's Dream Catcher transport craft -- which has the capacity to carry up to seven astronauts and cargo and sports a winged design similar to the original space shuttle at one-fourth the design of the former -- was included among the three transport systems selected in previous rounds of research and development funding made available under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Commercial Crew program.

The Dream Chaser -- which land horizontally, like a regular airplane and has been deemed safe enough for use at high-volume commercial airports, but launches vertically atop an Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Company -- had received commitments for more than $300 million in NASA funding, with SNC investing even more.

In mid-September, however, while many in the industry believed SNC was one of the top two contract contenders, NASA awarded contracts exclusively to Boeing and SpaceX, for amounts of $4.4 billion and $2.6 billion respectively.

That said, SNC officials said they strongly believed while the proposal they submitted for the Dream Catcher shuttle system was found to be compliant and awardable under the criteria set forth in the program's guidelines, it offered a far more economical option to Boeing's significantly more expensive CTS-100 system, "which would result in a substantial increased cost to the public," a press release said, despite the fact all three competitor companies logged "equivalent technical and past performance scores."

Through its 51 years in business, SNC "has never filed a legal challenge to a government contract award. However, in the case of the [Commercial Crew Transportation Capability] award, NASA's own Source Selection Statement and debrief indicate that there are serious questions and inconsistencies in the source selection process. SNC, therefore, feels that there is no alternative but to institute a legal challenge," said a company statement.

The company argues in the statement that amid the current era of government funding crises and resulting budget limits, "it is more important than ever to deliver the best value to the American public. With the current awards, the U.S. government would spend up to $900 million more at the publicly announced contracted level for a space program equivalent to the program that SNC proposed. Given those facts, we believe that a thorough review must be conducted of the award decision ... and that the proposal that was submitted by SNC is the best choice for NASA and the American public."

The SNC filing seeks a further detailed review and evaluation of the submitted proposals and capabilities.