OA Orbital Atk, Inc. (delisted)

U.S. government space officials are poised to pick Sierra Nevada Corp. as one of the winners in the next round of commercial contracts to transport cargo into orbit, according to a person familiar with the details.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announcement, slated for later Thursday, would catapult the closely held Nevada company into the top tier of agency contractors. The anticipated decision, according to the person familiar with the details, would give Sierra Nevada a chance to snare a significant share of what is projected to be as much as $14 billion in commercial cargo-delivery business for NASA through the end of the decade and perhaps beyond.

It isn't clear how much of that future business will go to the other two bidders: Space Exploration Technologies Corp. or SpaceX, and Orbital ATK Inc. Those companies are the incumbents shipping cargo to the orbiting international space station and were initially favored by industry officials to emerge as winners in the competition for follow-on contracts. But each suffered a catastrophic launch failure last year.

All three companies have been asked by NASA to refrain from comments until the announcement Thursday afternoon.

Industry officials and congressional staffers have said NASA is unlikely to pick more than two winners in the current round of bidding.

For Sierra Nevada, which previously failed to win a share of NASA's commercial contracts to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, a cargo win would provide a major financial and prestige boost. The company already provides a wide range of hardware used on satellites, and it also supplies various other military and commercial aerospace parts and systems.

Obtaining a share of cargo missions would represent a dramatic vote of confidence by NASA in Sierra Nevada's space plane—whose appearance resembles the retired space shuttle—which is designed to launch on top of a rocket. Like the space shuttle, Sierra Nevada's vehicle, dubbed Dream Chaser, is intended to return to Earth by landing on a runway like a conventional airplane.

In their presentations to NASA, Sierra Nevada officials have argued that their solution offers technical and operational benefits compared to the space capsules operated by the two rivals.

NASA isn't expected to announce the contracts' dollar amounts on Thursday but rather to disclose which companies it has chosen to provide the next phase of cargo transport to low-earth orbit.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 14, 2016 15:05 ET (20:05 GMT)

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