NASA Hires SpaceX to Send Astronauts to the International Space Station
The second company next to Boeing’s announcement in May.
Becoming the second company next to Boeing, Elon Musk’s SpaceX gets the NASA okay to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA’s announcement on Friday comes about a month after the company secured two large contracts to launch communications satellites sometime in 2017 or 2018, and six months after Boeing got contracted.
Although NASA has yet to decide who will be the first company to send its astronauts into space during the 2017-scheduled launch, SpaceX readies its seven-passenger Crew Dragon spacecraft, while Boeing has its CST-100 Starliner on call.
No matter who receives the first launch assignment, this announcement is “a major step forward in freeing the US space program from its dependency on Russia,” as Engadget reports.
