LOS ANGELES—Boeing and SpaceX have landed NASA contracts worth a total of $6.8 billion (U.S.) to launch an astronaut into space, the agency announced Tuesday.
The contracts are aimed at continuing the final development of spacecraft that will take astronauts to the International Space Station.
Under the contracts, the companies will have a goal of performing a test flight to the space station with a NASA astronaut in 2017.
Since NASA retired its space shuttles in 2011, it has been paying the Russian government about $70 million a seat to transport U.S. astronauts to the space station. That arrangement, which was always intended to be temporary, has become strained in recent months amid tensions between Russia and the West over the situation in Ukraine and Crimea.
SpaceX, whose name is short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is based in Hawthorne, Calif., and helmed by entrepreneur Elon Musk. It already has a $1.6-billion contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the space station.
Chicago-based Boeing Co. has built nearly every manned spacecraft in U.S. history.
Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nev., which has been building a space plane that closely resembles a miniature space shuttle, had also been in the running for the NASA contract.
No comments:
Post a Comment