This artist's rendering provided by Sierra Nevada Space Systems shows the company's Dream Chaser spacecraft docking with the International Space Station. NASA has picked three aerospace companies to build small rocketships to take astronauts to the International Space Station. This is the third phase of NASA's efforts to get private space companies to take over the job of the now-retired space shuttle. The space agency is giving them more than $1.1 billion. Two of three ships are capsules like in the Apollo era and the third is a lifting body that is closer in design to the space shuttle. (AP Photo/Sierra Nevada Space Systems)

Alliant Techsystems plan to use its Liberty rocket to eventually transport astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station was left unfunded on the launch pad Friday.

Instead, NASA announced Boeing Co. received a $460 million award; Space Exploration Technologies Corp., a Hawthorne, Calif.-based company also known as SpaceX and led by billionaire Elon Musk, got a $440 million contract to develop spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts into orbit; and Sierra Nevada Corp., based in Sparks, Nev., won a contract valued at $213 million.

ATKs Liberty rocket system

What is it? Its a 300-foot-tall, two-stage rocket system designed to be a low-cost method to put people and equipment into space. It was developed by Alliant Techsystems.

How it would be used It was designed with a crew module and originally scheduled to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station.

The team The Liberty team spans 10 states, including Utah, and was expected to sustain thousands of jobs and create 600 new jobs, according to ATK.

First flights It was originally scheduled to conduct its first unmanned test flights in 2014 and 2015, followed by the first manned flight in late 2015. If it had been selected by NASA, it would have made its first commercial flights to the International Space Station in 2016.

Future of the project ATK says it needs to be debriefed by NASA before it can make any decisions on the long-term prospects for the program.

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NASA bypasses ATK for manned space flight contract