NASA extends SpaceX’s Commercial Crew contract by three missions for $900 million

NASA extends SpaceX’s Commercial Crew contract by three missions for $900 million

Commercial Crew Transportation Capacity (CCTCap) contracts total $3.49 billion for SpaceX, NASA stated today, boosting SpaceX's CCTCap contract to $3.49 billion. Is.

When the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, a $2.6 billion contract was granted to SpaceX to establish US crew launch capabilities. Using a Crew Dragon capsule and a Falcon 9 rocket, the commercial spaceflight business has successfully launched three ISS crew missions, Crew-1 through Crew-3 (including a crew test trip), since the year 2020.

Crew-4 and Crew-5 will launch in 2022, and Crew-6 will arrive in 2023, all with SpaceX under contract. SpaceX's performance term has been extended to March 31, 2028, which is a great regular payday for the company's burgeoning launch and space operations business, according to a NASA statement.

In December 2021, NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate's assistant administrator Kathy Leiders issued a notice of intent to renegotiate SpaceX's contract. We must have a US manned launch capability to ensure the safety of our operations in space and to establish the low-Earth orbit economy."

SpaceX is the only US corporation currently certified to transport personnel to the International Space Station (ISS), according to a NASA notification released at the time. For a total of $4.2 billion, NASA awarded Boeing a six-mission CCTcap contract in 2014, but the Starliner spacecraft is still in the testing phase. If all goes as planned, it will launch on an Atlas V rocket in May 2022 and meet with the International Space Station.

NASA eventually plans to cooperate with SpaceX and Boeing to carry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of their commercial crew projects. For transportation to the ISS, NASA depended solely on Russian space agency Roscosmos between the retirement of Shuttle and SpaceX's Commercial Crew certification. As of this year, a report stated. In total, NASA spent $55.4 million per seat on the Soyuz launch system between 2006 and 2020, according to NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG). NASA was paying the Russian agency $86 million each seat at the end of that time period., The average cost per seat for SpaceX was estimated at $55 million, whereas the average cost per seat for Boeing was estimated at $90 million in the same OIG report.