NASA’s commercial space partners, which include Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Sierra Nevada (SNC), have successfully completed their first milestone as part of the agency’s commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap) programme.
Following completion of the space act agreement with NASA for commercial orbital transportation services (COTS), SpaceX is planning to launch the first of its 12 contracted cargo flights to the ISS under a commercial resupply service (CRS) contract in October 2012.
Sierra Nevada’s Dream ChaserSpace System has also completed its first milestone, a programme implementation plan review, marking a major step in the company’s crew transportation system development.
The programme implementation plan review provides details of design, development, system testing, evaluation, risk reduction activities and flight testing of all systems planned for the 21-month base and optional agreement period.
Boeing, which has also been awarded a contract to develop a space vehicle, is close to completing its first milestone, an integrated systems review of its CST-100 space capsule.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is aimed at facilitating the development of a US commercial crew space transportation capability to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the space station and low earth orbit.
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By GlobalDataFollowing the achievement of matured capability, crew space transportation is expected to be made available to the government and other clients.
NASA is likely to award a contract to buy commercial services in a move to comply its station crew transportation requirements by the end of the decade.
SNC also has plans to perform its first approach and landing test, similar to the flight test of NASA’s space shuttle Enterprise, during late 2012 and is scheduled for completion alongside Dream Chaser’s NASA Dryden Flight Research Center team.
Image: SNC is developing Dream Chaser for NASA’s objective to transport astronauts to International Space Station. Photo: courtesy of Sierra Nevada Space Systems.
