NASA plans to buy five more manned SpaceX flights on the International Space Station.
The agency announced a “single source modification” to its contract with SpaceX, which operates the only U.S. system that currently transports NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The expected value of the modified contract was not disclosed in a blog post from the agency (opens in a new tab) on Wednesday (June 1st).
The purchase of five flights is in addition to a $ 3.5 billion contract awarded to SpaceX in February for three additional astronaut missions with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule: Crew-7, Crew-8 and Crew- 9. NASA then said it could order more flights from SpaceX.
For a prospect, Crew-4 is in space right now, Crew-5 should be launched in September and Crew-6 is scheduled for spring 2023. Assuming the five newly purchased flights continue in sequence after Crew-9, the contract modification would lead to SpaceX. Crew-14 mission.
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Boeing’s Starliner capsule lands on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on May 25, 2022. (Image credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls)
While SpaceX is the only company to send astronauts into space for NASA at this time, the agency said Boeing’s Starliner capsule will likely be ready soon.
Starliner achieved its main goals during an unmanned test flight on the ISS that ended on May 25th.
“The recent success of Boeing’s unmanned flight test is helping to consolidate NASA’s long-term goals,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said in a statement to the agency on Wednesday. . “It’s critical that we complete Starliner’s development without undue schedule pressure as we work to position both Boeing and SpaceX for sustainable operations in the coming years.”
NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins floats on the dome of the International Space Station in this photo, which NASA shared on May 9, 2022. (Image credit: NASA)
Space station operations are currently being approved until the end of 2024. NASA wants to keep the lab in orbit until at least 2030, but the other major partners in the program, including Russia, should approve this expansion. Russia’s approval can be difficult as many of the nation’s other space associations have disintegrated amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (The activities and cooperation of the Russian ISS remain relatively unaffected.)
Current space station rotation rates require manned spacecraft from all nations to fly up and down about four times a year for basic station needs, including maintenance and science. However, NASA does not carry all this load. Russia supplies cosmonauts through its Soyuz spacecraft, which NASA still uses occasionally for its astronauts; for example, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei returned to Earth on March 30 in a Soyuz.
NASA sees SpaceX and Boeing as key to their astronaut transportation needs in the coming years; the agency awarded contracts to both companies in 2014 for this work.
NASA said on Wednesday that it may need to use additional SpaceX flights as early as 2026. Ordering more Dragon missions that could fly even after Starliner is ready provides significant redundancy, officials said. of the agency.
The goal of this redundancy is to “keep the space station’s operations secure and allow each company to resolve any unforeseen problems that may arise as private industry builds operational experience with these new systems,” wrote officials. NASA in the blog post.
NASA added that its most recent amendment to the SpaceX contract does not prevent the agency from making further changes later as transportation service needs arise.
In addition to providing services to NASA, Dragon has launched private manned missions into the orbit, namely Inspiration4 and Ax-1 in September 2021, which sent four people to the space station in April.
The spacecraft is also a key part of the Polaris Program, a new billionaire-backed company that will see Inspiration4’s Jared Isaacman return to orbit several times aboard the SpaceX spacecraft. Polaris flights are expected to include Dragon and an upcoming SpaceX system under development, Starship.
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