The US Space Agency has placed the first order for a manned flight to the ISS on the Elon Musk SpaceX. The launch of the spacecraft is scheduled for late 2017.
According to NASA, the astronauts will be launched from the United States. SpaceX will be the second company to win a space agency tender. In May of this year, a similar order was placed with Boeing. All in all, according to NASA's plans, four such flights will be organized.
The plans for the delivery of astronauts to the ISS were announced by the American Space Agency back in September last year. Under the contracts, Boeing and SpaceX must receive $ 6.8 billion to build the manned CST-100 and Dragon V2. 4, 2 billion were intended for Boeing and 2, 6 - for Elon Musk. "It is very important to have two healthy and reliable companies to transport crews from American soil to the station and conduct scientific experiments in space," - quotes NASA as the words of agency manager Katie Luders, who oversees commercial flights.
Flights to the ISS should begin in 2017, but it is not yet known which of the companies, Boeing or SpaceX, will organize the first launch. In accordance with the terms of the contract, each company must carry out six manned flights. SpaceX stressed that they are now making every effort to guarantee the safety of the flight. As reported by Nakied Science, in late June, the Falcon-9 rocket, which was supposed to launch the Dragon cargo ship, which was carrying about two tons of cargo to the ISS, exploded about 2.5 minutes after launch. “When Dragon is launched with NASA astronauts on board in 2017, it will be a journey for them in one of the safest and most reliable spacecraft ever created,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said yesterday.
Earlier, SpaceX has already presented the interior of a manned spacecraft that will take astronauts to the ISS. The Crew Dragon capsule, designed to transport seven (in the cargo-passenger mode of four) astronauts at once to the orbital station, has been created. According to the developers, "with the greatest possible comfort for the crew." The capsule has four observation windows, a special panel for monitoring the state of the ship during the flight, and an evacuation system in case of emergency situations.
Recall that now American astronauts are sent to the ISS on the Russian manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-M. According to representatives of NASA, due to the current situation in the world, the transition to American means of transportation "will mark the end of American dependence on Russian rockets that deliver astronauts aboard the International Space Station."