NASA ordered its first commercial flight crew from Boeing in May earlier this year, and then, in November, the agency ordered a crewed flight using SpaceX's Crew Dragon.
Now, NASA has ordered a second flight crew from Boeing. There is still no word, however, on which company will be launched by NASA first.
SpaceX and Boeing are both building spacecraft for NASA's commercial crew program, with the project goal being to get American astronauts on American rockets back into space. Since the Space Shuttle program was cancelled, NASA has had to rely on Russian rockets to get astronauts into space, something that is very costly for NASA at a whopping $80 per seat. Using Boeing and SpaceX rockets, however, NASA will be able to save a lot of money.
"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," said NASA in a statement.
As part of the contracts that NASA have with the two companies, the agency will conduct at least four crewed flights, meaning that one of those flights has yet to be ordered. Orders are made by NASA around two or three years in advance, giving companies enough time to build their rockets.
NASA has already decided who is going to ride on the commercial crew spacecraft, however, specific launch dates have not yet been set. It looks as though they will happen at some point in late 2017, but there is some suggestion that the date might end up being early 2018 due to budget issues. Despite this, a recent budget bill that was passed by the Senate fully funds the commercial crew program, making budget constraints less of an issue.
Via: The Verge
