The latest space race is heating up.
NASA announced Boeing and SpaceX have won contracts to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station in privately developed space taxis at a press conference at Kennedy Space Center Tuesday, Sept. 16.
The contracts are worth $6.8 billion over the initial contract period, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced during the press conference. The breakdown will be $4.2 billion for Boeing's proposal and $2.6 billion for SpaceX's proposal.
The announcement comes after a report in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that Boeing would win the contract from NASA with SpaceX or Sierra Nevada Group expected to win one of the smaller bids. Boeing's CST-100 and SpaceX's Dragon capsules, which was unveiled in May, are the proposed space taxis that could be ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station.
"We know it will be a seminal moment in NASA history and a major achievement for our nation," Bolden said during the press conference. "This wasn't an easy choice, but it's the best choice for NASA and the nation."
Bolden was visibly emotional during the press conference. "I'm giddy today, I will admit," he said. "I couldn't be happier."
NASA shut down its space shuttle program back in 2011, and since then, the U.S. has been using Russian rockets and capsules to fly astronauts to and from the space station. One of the hopes of these contracts is to end reliance on foreign spacecrafts.
With these new contracts, NASA also hopes this will help send more people to space and aid in the efforts to eventually send humans to Mars, said Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana during the press conference.
The agency plans to launch astronauts into space using these vessels in 2017. Both contracts include at least two missions but can include up to six and will deliver a crew of four. Before these missions, each company's vehicle must complete five certification milestones, which includes one flight demonstration with NASA crew members on it.
