Boeing Building "Commercial" Space Capsule

Boeing will use the commercial crew capsule it is developing under an agreement with NASA to provide transportation to the private space station that Bigelow Aerospace intends to have in service by 2015, the two companies announced here July 19.

Dubbed the CST-100, for Crew Transportation System, the partially reusable capsule will be able to fly unmanned or with as many as seven astronauts to the Bigelow Aerospace Orbital Space Complex. The commercial facility is to be built with inflatable modules and have a volume about two-thirds that of the International Space Station (ISS).

Boeing is maturing its design for the vehicle under an $18 million Commercial Crew Development Space Act agreement with NASA.

Brewster Shaw, a former astronaut who leads Boeing’s space exploration efforts, says the ultimate goal is for the CST-100 to be the seed from which Boeing will grow a space business analogous to its vast commercial airplanes segment.

While Boeing says it would be difficult to develop the CST-100 without NASA’s commitment to go forward with a commercial crew vehicle, company officials also say servicing the ISS alone would probably not support the business case for the vehicle.

Bigelow, for its part, needs a provider of reliable, safe transportation to its facility in low Earth orbit, but it also wants the station to be capable of being serviced by unmanned vehicles such as Europe’s ATV, Japan’s HTV and Russia’s Progress, as well as crewed vehicles such as the commercial Dragon being developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) or Russia’s venerable Soyuz spacecraft.

Bigelow anticipates a customer base among countries without a current manned space program and, eventually, corporations. The focus has been on nation states so far, founder Bob Bigelow indicated.

The CST-100 vehicle, which would be larger than an Apollo but smaller than NASA’s Orion, is being designed to be flown on any of three launch vehicles: Delta IV, Atlas V and Falcon 9. An abort system would involve a “pusher” system, rather than the traditional arrangement of small rockets that pull a manned vehicle away from a launcher in distress, Boeing officials say. The advantage is that if the abort system is not used, the fuel would then be available for maneuvering in orbit.

The CST-100 could stay on orbit as long as seven months. After returning to Earth via ballistic re-entry while protected by an ablative shield, it would be slowed by parachutes to settle on dry land. The capsule could then receive a new heat shield and be refurbished to fly again. The CST-100 is being designed for a life of up to 10 missions for each vehicle.

I wonder how this compares to the Dragon capsule from SpaceX.