SpaceX, Northrop Grumman bag six additional NASA resupply missions to ISS till 2026

NASA has awarded Elon Musk's X six more missions to International Station (ISS) under its Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contracts with a maximum potential value of $14 billion. Ar US company rthrop Grumman has also received orders for six trips to station and will share contract budget with X. This comes after NASA recently granted $3.49 billion to X for astronaut transportation to ISS under  Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract.

According to NASA, crew and cargo resupply missions to station would be carried out through 2026 under contracts. NASA, in 2016 as well, had offered CRS-2 contracts to se two companies along with Sierra . Four years later in October 2020, NASA had again ordered two additional missions from rthrop Grumman, and three from X, ncy said in a report.

So far, CRS-2 contracts have seen ncy award a total of 32 missions, wherein 15 went to X, 14 are for rthrop Grumman and three to Sierra . 

NASA's trust in X

As mentioned above, X has already bagged a $3.49 billion contract to ferry astronauts to and from station. Under contract, Musk's company would carry operations through 2028, which shows NASA's trust in X. Earlier, NASA has said that X is currently only company capable of providing safe, reliable, and cost-effective human transportation. So far, X has completed three crew launches for NASA including Crew-1, Crew-2 and Crew-3. Henceforth, company is aiming for Crew-4 and Crew-5 launch in 2022 and subsequent one next year. According to NASA, fresh contract would cover launches up to Crew-9 by end of decade.   

Crew-4 mission is scheduled for April 19, wherein Crew Dragon capsule named 'Freedom' would carry a team of four astronauts- Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins and Samantha Christoforetti. 

Im: Twitter/@X