NASA Awards Boeing And SpaceX Contracts To Deliver Astronauts To The Space Station

[Valin]

Forbes:

Alex Knapp

9/16/14

 

NASA officially announced today that both Boeing and SpaceX have been awarded Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts. These contracts are for the development of spacecraft that will be able to take astronauts to the International Space Station, with a target start date of 2017. The third company in the running for a contract, Sierra Nevada Corporation, did not receive an award.

 

This announcement from NASA partially contradicts earlier reports that Boeing was to be the “primary” winner of the contract, with SpaceX only receiving a secondary award. Instead, NASA doesn’t appear to be distinguishing between the two companies as a primary or secondary provider, although there is a difference in the financial value of the two contracts.

 

Both companies are developing manned capsules which will ferry up to seven passengers and payloads to the International Space Station. Boeing’s CST-100 is planned to be launched by Atlas 5 rockets, which are built and operated by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed. The SpaceX Dragon capsule will be launched by SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 rocket.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

an article in the Journal earlier in the week by Andy Pasztor, a reporter who seems to have a long-standing habit of twisting stories against SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk, using “inside” information (i.e., spin) from his competitors. He wrote:

 

(Snip)

 

What this means is that any rocket that utilizes the engine will be of an entirely new design, and there will only be one of them, since the Air Force will have a backup with SpaceX and be unwilling to continue to subsidize two rockets for ULA. What it will be called — Atlas, Delta or neither — is completely unknown at this time. But the move (which cut out the established engine manufacturer Aerojet-Rocketdyne, and leaves its own corporate viability potentially in doubt) was a sign of just how desperate ULA has become to solve its dual problems of relying on Russian rocket engines and its inability to currently compete with SpaceX on cost. It’s also a sign of just how technologically disruptive to a moribund American launch industry Mr. Musk has been, something for which he should be applauded.

 

We now have two billionaires competing to be the first to put, in Mr. Bezos’s words on Wednesday, “millions of people in space.” Let the race, and the new vibrant American space age, begin.