American aerospace and defense firm Lockheed Martin has taken the wraps off its proposed space cargo transport system that will haul cargo to the International Space Station by 2018.

Lockheed's concept calls for combining a spacecraft consisting of a reusable portion and a disposable portion. The former is named "Jupiter" and the latter, the "Exoliner supply module".

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Both Jupiter and Exoliner will be able to transport up to 11,000 pounds of pressurized cargo and another 3,300 pounds unpressurized. They will be launched into orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket.

Once in orbit, Jupiter will autonomously dock the Exoliner with the ISS. After the ISS crew unloads the Exoliner's cargo, they'll begin fill the Exoliner's cargo bay with garbage.

As soon as Exoliner is filled, Lockheed will send up a new Exoliner. In the meantime, Jupiter has continued in Low Earth Orbit since the last delivery.

Jupiter disengages the old Exoliner from the ISS, grabs the new Exoliner with a robot arm while it's still attached to the Atlas V's Centaur second stage and swaps the two cargo containers. Jupiter takes the new Exoliner to the ISS for docking while the old, garbage-laden one will burn up during atmospheric re-entry.

Jupiter also has the capability to deploy commercial satellites. Lockheed also said the system can also be adapted to carry astronauts to Mars and beyond.

"Although our priority is going to be servicing the International Space Station and providing the ability to carry commercial payloads and deploy small satellites, we're also designing this system from the beginning to be able to do deep-space missions," said Lockheed Martin space exploration architect Josh Hopkins.

"That means that NASA will be able to start doing some early human spaceflights beyond low-Earth orbit without a huge investment."

NASA will announce its choice for the third round of Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contracts in June. Should Lockheed win the contract, Jupiter could start doing its job as early as 2018. Lockheed is competing against Boeing and Sierra Nevada for the CRS-2 contract.