NASA says Boeing has been awarded a $2.8 billion contract to develop the giant first stage of the space agency's planned Space Launch System rocket.
The huge, 20-story-tall booster is seen as the foundation of NASA's heavy lift rocket system meant to take astronauts back to the moon and beyond into deep space.
Under the contract Boeing will also develop the avionics for the booster, set to be even more powerful than the legendary Saturn 5 rocket that took the first astronauts to the moon, company officials said.
"Our teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the SLS -- the largest ever -- will be built safely, affordably and on time," Virginia Barnes, Boeing's Space Launch System (SLS) VP and program manager, said in a statement.
The first test launch of an SLS rocket, carrying an unmanned Orion crew capsule, is set for 2017, and a second flight carrying astronauts aboard the Orion is planned to take place in 2021, NASA says.
The Orion capsule is being developed by Lockheed Martin Corporation, and is meant to carry as many as four astronauts on deep space missions outside low Earth orbit to destinations including the moon, near-Earth asteroids and, as an ultimate goal by the 2030s, to Mars.
The firsts stage booster of the SLS is intended to provide a lift capacity of 77 tons; in its final two-stage arrangement the SLS will have the capability of lofting more than 140 tons from the Earth into space.
The contract between Boeing and NASA, meant to run through 2021, was finalized after completion of a critical design review, considered a major step in the new booster's development.
"The SLS program team completed the core stage critical design review ahead of schedule and continues to make excellent progress towards delivering the rocket to the launch pad," Todd May, SLS program manager for NASA, said in a statement. "Our entire prime contractor and government team has been working full-steam on this program since its inception."
The $2.8 billion includes money already paid to Boeing for work it began in 2007 on the now-canceled Bush-era Constellation Moon-exploration program.
President Barack Obama canceled that effort in favor of developing new technologies and using commercial launch vehicles to service the International Space Station.
Some critics, citing NASA estimates of a final cost around $18 billion for the SLS/Orion program, have said the space agency should cancel the SLS and rely instead on those commercial launch rockets from companies like SpaceX for NASA missions to deep space destinations.
