NASA awards 3 more missions worth over Rs 26K crore to SpaceX for ISS launches till 2028

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been awarded three additional NASA missions for astronaut transportation to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA said that the missions are part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract which saw its value increase up to $3.49 billion (over Rs 26,401.15 crore) and the California-based firm would carry out the operations through 31 March 2028.

"The CCtCap modification, following the agency’s notice of intent to procure the flights in December 2021, brings the total missions for SpaceX to nine and allows NASA to maintain an uninterrupted US capability for human access to the space station", NASA wrote in a statement.

The CCtCap contract allows NASA to certify that a launch provider's space transportation system meets the agency’s requirements and is eligible for human spaceflights. Notably, SpaceX was certified for crew launches in November 2020 and has conducted three for NASA.

The latest announcement comes after NASA had offered the CCtCap contracts worth $2.6 billion (Rs 19,668.48 crore) to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 under its Commercial Crew Program. So far, SpaceX has completed three crew launches for NASA including Crew-1, Crew-2 and Crew-3. Henceforth, the company is aiming for Crew-4 and Crew-5 launch in 2022 and the subsequent one next year. According to NASA, the fresh contract would cover launches up to Crew-9 by the end of the decade.   

SpaceX only company capable of safe space trips: NASA

The multi-billion-dollar contract to SpaceX followed as NASA is fairly satisfied with the former's transportation systems. NASA had said that SpaceX is currently the only company capable of providing safe, reliable, and cost-effective human space transportation services to and from the ISS.

While Boeing was also awarded a contract for such safe systems, it has not been able to offer services parallel to SpaceX. NASA, however, is working with Boeing to develop the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which after certification, would also ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

"NASA continues to have a need for two unique crew capabilities to ensure dissimilar redundancy, maintain safe space station operations, and allow each company to work through any unforeseen issues", NASA had stated in its blog post.

(Image: NASA)