As reported by Reuters: The U.S. space program should
save more than $12 million a seat flying astronauts to and from the
International Space Station on commercial space taxis rather than aboard
Russian capsules, the NASA program manager said on Monday.
In
September, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded
contracts worth up to a combined $6.8 billion to Boeing and privately
owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to fly crew to the
station, a $100 billion research laboratory about 260 miles above Earth.
Since
retiring the space shuttles in 2011, the United States has depended on
Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, to ferry astronauts to the orbital
outpost. The service costs more than $70 million per person.
NASA expects to pay an average
of $58 million a seat when its astronauts begin flying on Boeing’s
CST-100 and SpaceX’s Dragon capsules in 2017, Kathy Lueders, manager of
NASA’s Commercial Crew program, told reporters during a news conference
in Houston and via conference call.
“I don’t ever want to have to write another check to Roscosmos after 2017, hopefully,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.
Both SpaceX and Boeing plan two
test flights to the station, the first without a crew and the second
with a combination of company test pilots and NASA astronauts aboard.
SpaceX
is targeting its unmanned test flight in 2016 and its piloted flight in
early 2017, said company president Gwynne Shotwell. Boeing’s test
flights are targeted for April and July 2017, vice president and program
manager John Elbon said.
For
its manned test flight, Boeing plans to fly one as-yet-unnamed company
astronaut and one NASA astronaut. SpaceX said it is still deciding on a
test flight crew.
Though
schedules show SpaceX being ready ahead of Boeing to fly operational
missions, NASA currently expects Boeing to begin flight services first
in December 2017, Lueders said.
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