NASA awarded the SpaceX company five additional missions for crew transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the US agency’s Commercial Personnel Transportation Contract (CCtCap).
The scientific entity indicated in a statement released this Thursday that the modification of the contract raises the total number of SpaceX missions, founded by tycoon Elon Musk, to 13 and which allows NASA to maintain uninterrupted capacity for human access to the space station until 2030.
The extension of the contract with SpaceX includes the future missions Crew-10, Crew-11, Crew-12, Crew-13 and Crew-13, as detailed by NASA.
The value of this contract modification for the five flights and the mission related services is from m More than 1,400 million dollars.
The amount includes ground operations, launch, orbit, return and recovery, cargo transport for each mission and assistance while docking with the ISS.
The contract period extends until 2030 and brings the total value of CCtCap’s contract with SpaceX to more than 4,900 million dollars.
The new missions to SpaceX follow NASA’s announcement, last June, of new additional missions with Musk’s company.
The current modification does not prevent NASA from seeking future contract modifications for additional transportation services, as necessary, the statement states.
In 2014, NASA awarded the CCtCap contracts to Boeing and SpaceX through a public-private partnership as part of the agency’s commercial crew program.
Under CCtCap, NASA certifies that a vendor’s space transportation system meets the agency’s requirements prior to missions with astronauts.
SpaceX was certified by NASA for crew transportation in November of 2020.
The company’s fourth crew rotation mission for the agency, the Crew-4 mission, is currently in orbit aboard the space station.
As part of the missions, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket transport up to four astronauts, along with cargo, to the ISS.
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