Slash Gear by Chris Davies - Oct 21, 2021
NASA is putting out a call for more astronaut shuttles, expanding the Commercial Crew program with additional missions beyond those already agreed with SpaceX and Boeing. The request for “safe, reliable, and cost-effective human space transportation services to and from the International Space Station” comes as the US space agency looks ahead to the future of the ISS and, beyond that, missions to the Moon and further afield.
The Commercial Crew program has proved to be a successful replacement to NASA’s aging Space Shuttle program. Retiring its own fleet of space-capable vehicles, and instead looking to public-private partnerships with then-startups like SpaceX, NASA was able to ink flight deals for American astronauts while skipping the development costs involved in the spacecraft they’d be traveling on.
Several private companies rose to that challenge, with craft like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon already taking astronauts to and from the ISS. Currently, NASA has twelve missions on the books with SpaceX and Boeing, and is now looking ahead to further contracts.
More:
https://www.slashgear.com/nasa-puts-out-new-spacecraft-and-space-suit-call-for-iss-and-beyond-21696157/
