NASA has made an agreement with SpaceX to buy five more astronaut transportation missions to and from the International Space Station, according to TechCrunch. This puts Elon Musk's company as a top provider for prime services for NASA.
The new contract is for the Crew-10 to Crew-14 missions, which is valued at $1.4 billion. In total, the contract's value for all 14 transportation missions, which are part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program, is $4.9 billion. SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to transport up to four astronauts, the Falcon 9 rocket for launch, and all return and recover operations are included in the funds.
CCtCap Program
The CCtCap program is under the Commercial Crew Program, which is a series of public-private partnerships all designed to develop domestic launch capabilities. Originally, NASA issues. $3.6 billion contract to SpaceX in 2014, then it also issued a contract to Boeing for $4.2 billion for six flights through their Starliner capsule. Boeing and NASA are targeting early 2023 for the first-ever crewed Starliner flight.
NASA's goal is to use Crew Dragon and Starliner to transport astronauts. before CCtCap, NASA used the Soyuz capsule from Russia to transport astronauts. In a 2019 report, it was revealed that the space agency was spending an average of $79.7 million per seat after 2017.
As for NASA, the additional flights were all due to technical and schedule challenges by Boeing. They also talked about the importance of having a redundant transportation capabilities for astronauts to ensure the ISS is always crewed through the end of the station's life in 2030. NASA also extended SpaceXs CCtCAP contract in February.
SpaceX Crew Dragon
The Crew Dragon capsule is designed to carry a crew of four astronauts on missions to low-Earth orbit destinations such as the International Space Station. SpaceX has been working on the capsule for the last few years. The capsule is designed to be reusable and is powered by eight Raptor engines. It is much larger than the Dragon cargo capsule. It also has a different heat shield system, and it can carry the maximum abort load. This is about 3 to 4 times more than any other capsule.
Essentially, SpaceX designs, makes, and launches rockets and spacecraft. They are the only private company to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit. Most of their launch vehicles are realigned.
It seems as if space has become a business. With the number of private companies that are looking to get into space either for profit or for science, it's only going to get bigger and better.
Related Article: SpaceX's Newest Crew Dragon Capsule is Named Endurance
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Written by: April Fowell
