NASA took an important step Friday to establish regular crew missions that will launch from the United States to the International Space Station with the order of its second post-certification mission from Boeing Space Exploration of Houston.
"Once certified by NASA, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon each will be capable of two crew launches to the station per year," said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. "Placing orders for those missions now really sets us up for a sustainable future aboard the International Space Station."
This is the third in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts. Boeing and SpaceX received their first orders in May and November, respectively, and have started planning for, building and procuring the necessary hardware and assets to carry out their first missions for the agency. NASA will identify at a later time which company will fly a mission to the station first.
Boeing met the criteria for NASA to award the company its second mission with the successful completion of interim developmental milestones and internal design reviews for its Starliner spacecraft, United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and associated ground system.
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1 comment:
Watched the SpaceX launch live. That was simply breathtaking, watching the first stage come roaring in to land on solid ground. First time getting to see cargo launched off a second stage too! Also liked the slick information feed and telemetry from the second stage they had in the live stream. Quite the gamble on the publicity stunt, but Musk must have felt extremely confident of success to make this such a big, flashy event. Rightly so, it seems!
Hopefully this'll kick Boeing in the rear and get them to really amp up their game.
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