NASA used Space X's aircraft for their crew missions and awarded them the contract for Crew-1 to Crew-6. NASA has announced that it has officially extended the contract to Space X to operate Crew-7, Crew-8 and Crew-9. As a result, SpaceX's total Crew Mission contract rose to $ 3.49 billion.
Following the retirement of Space Shuttle in 2011, SpaceX was awarded a $ 2.6 billion contract in 2014 to develop its ability to send astronauts to the ISS. Since 2020, SpaceX has successfully launched four missions, including the Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-3 and Capsule-assisted operations with the Crew Dragon Capsule and falcon 9 rocket.
SpaceX has agreed to carry out three more missions under the first agreement, with Crew-4 and Crew-5 scheduled to operate in 2022 and Crew-6 in 2023. With the latest contract extension, SpaceX's performance now runs until March 31, 2028, making it a good investment for a growing launch and space operations company
“It’s critical we begin to secure additional flights to the space station now so we are ready as these missions are needed to maintain a U.S. presence on station, ”
Kathy Lueders, Assistant Administrator on NASA's Space Operations Directorate, announced the agency's change of contract with SpaceX in December 2021. He has stated that he has begun to secure more of these aircraft and that these operations are necessary to represent the United States in the ISS.
According to the announcement, NASA has acknowledged that SpaceX is the only American company currently approved to transport personnel to the ISS. Boeing won a six-mission contract from NASA in 2014 for a total value of $ 4.2 billion, but its Starliner spacecraft is still unfit to transport its crew and is still in the testing phase. Its next test flight is currently scheduled for May 2022, when it will use an Atlas V rocket to reach the ISS.
Finally, NASA intends to work with SpaceX and Boeing to transport astronauts to the ISS, and in the meantime NASA used the Russian space agency Roscosmos until the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the completion of SpaceX's Crew Dragon Capsule.
According to a 2019 report from NASA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), NASA paid $ 55.4 million for a seat on Roscosmos' Soyuz launch system between 2006 and 2020. At the end of that period, NASA was paying the Russian agency $ 86 million per seat. The same OIG report estimates that the average cost per seat on SpaceX is $ 55 million and that on Boeing is $ 90 million per seat.
0 Comentarios