Boeing is making good time meeting NASA's space taxi requirements, recently reaching its second milestone in the agency's Commercial Crew Program. If all goes according to plan, the private spaceflight company will be all set to bring astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017.
Before deeming Boeing as having passed a critical test to be awarded the milestone, NASA conducted a three-week examination of what the company has done at an old space shuttle processing facility at the Kennedy Space Center and a mission control center for the future.
Dave Allega, a lead at the Commercial Crew Program's ground and mission operations office, explained that the agency looked not just at facility designs but operations processes as well, assessing how Boeing would be using the facilities, like in spacecraft production, during a mission and after a landing.
At the old processing facility, Boeing will be working on a Crew Space Transportation System called the CST-100. It is one of two funded spacecraft designed to ferry astronauts to the ISS and bring them back on American soil. This means that with the CST-100, for the first time since the Space Shuttle Program was scrapped, personnel need not leave the United States to greet returning astronauts.
Aside from the spacecraft itself, even how the CST-100 will be moved to Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was scrutinized, as well as how Boeing will be training astronauts before missions and how crew members will be monitored for the entire duration of a flight.
Allega noted that the CST-100 is a generally simpler vehicle than the space shuttle, but it has its own complications, which will require a deep understanding of how the spacecraft will work.
"When Boeing trains our astronauts, they will have to balance simplicity, and giving the crew everything they need to know to manually operate the spacecraft just in case something goes wrong," he said.
According to Kathryn Lueders, Commercial Crew Program manager, the critical review of Boeing's ground segment plans was validation for NASA that everything is in place and beginning to match up with certification requirements. She added that the progress of the review was a good sign that the agency is moving at a good pace toward reaching its goal of certifying a system that would be tasked with flying astronauts to the space station.
Once operational, the CST-100 will fitted on top of an Atlas V rocket, ready to carry a seven-man crew.
