On November 20th 2015, NASA announced that it had made its first crewed mission order from SpaceX. With this order, SpaceX becomes the second private company to be awarded one of four guaranteed orders under NASA's CCtCap (Commercial Crew Transportation Capability) contracts. In May of 2015, NASA made an order for Boeing to send a commercial crew to the ISS (International Space Station) in 2017.
NASA states that SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 have been certified after successfully passing through their development phases. NASA is looking to Boeing and SpaceX as a means of reducing the cost of accessing space. Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, NASA has been paying Russia $70 million a seat for a ride on a Soyuz to the ISS. NASA expects to have each mission carry four crew members and 220lb of pressurized cargo.
NASA has been working for some time to cede control of its low earth orbit operational flights to private companies. The idea is to move the agency back to mission destinations like the moon, an asteroid, or Mars. Meanwhile, since CCtCap orders are made two to three years in advance, and both Boeing and SpaceX have now both received orders, the race is on to see which company will launch first.
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