Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. case of Boeing Co. in the battle to become the first company to ferry American astronauts to the International Space Station.
SpaceX plans to fly Demo-2, its first crew test flight, in April 2019, while Boeing’s Crew Test Flight is now slated for mid-2019, according to a new record released by NASA -out Thursday. Both dates are later than the companies had anticipated.
NASA provided $ 6.8 billion to each company in September 2014 to restore U.S. capacity to an orbiting laboratory without purchasing sets of Russian Soyuz capsules – barrels that cost about $ 80 million each.
NASA will announce which astronauts will fly with Boeing and SpaceX at an event Friday at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft explodes at the top of the Atlas 5 United Launch Alliance rocket, while the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft travels on the company’s Falcon 9 workhorse rocket.
Last month, the Government Accountability Office warned that companies were slipping on their records toward NASA certification, with Boeing reaching that milestone in December 2019 and SpaceX a month later. One company may not be ready to fly astronauts until August 2020, the GAO said in their report.
The Commercial Crew program is a bit of a crisis because NASA has no contingency plan to keep astronauts going to and from the station after next year. The group has received their last five Soyuz sets to carry forward to November 2019.
Soyuz Slots
The process of acquiring additional Soyuz slots can take up to three years, according to the GAO. Moreover, tensions between the US and Russia have escalated in recent months, which could exacerbate any settlement.
“While we know there is some interest and focus on who will be flying first, NASA is more interested in both of them flying successfully,” said Stephanie Schierholz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. space agency. Thursday. NASA has declined to say whether it has considered additional Soyuz spots with Russian officials.
“NASA continues to assess a number of scenarios to ensure continued U.S. access to the International Space Station,” Schierholz wrote in an email earlier in the week. “The agency is working closely with its commercial and international partners and preparing for potential schedule changes in spacecraft development.”
In January, NASA had announced that Boeing would fly astronauts in November, and then SpaceX in December. The companies initially aimed to launch U.S. astronauts into space in 2017.
Boeing delays
Part of Boeing’s delay arose from a propellant leak in June during a launch engine test in New Mexico. These engines are designed to provide power if the rocket being launched is suffering from bad behavior and would send a Starliner crew capsule to a safe speed.
“We are confident that we have found the reason and are moving forward with a correction,” including some design changes, Boeing said this week.
The companies see the launch of astronauts as a step towards a future in which space travel will reach beyond low orbit. Proving that SpaceX can safely fly NASA staff Musk, the company ‘s chief executive, was closer to its ultimate goal of transporting human settlers to Mars.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has goals that are not so high. In speeches, he’s fond of pretending that the first person to walk on foot on the Red Planet will get there in a Boeing rocket.
With Dana Hull and Justin Bachman