NASA announced Tuesday that it is awarding aerospace contractor Boeing and private space exploration company SpaceX contracts to build the next manned spaceflight programs, which will routinely ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station from American soil for the first time since the retirement of the shuttle fleet in 2011. (RELATED: NASA: By 2017 Astronauts Will Launch From America, Not Russia)
The $6.8 billion commercial crew programs will launch their respective crafts — the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 capsules — from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to send crews of four to the ISS. (RELATED: Elon Musk Wants SpaceX’s New Ship To Forge The Path To Mars)
Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion of the total contract, with SpaceX taking away the remaining $2.6 billion.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the winners during a Tuesday afternoon press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Bolden also gave an update about the successful test recovery of NASA’s new proprietary Orion spacecraft, which will begin taking astronauts on deep space missions to the moon, asteroids and eventually Mars after 2017. (RELATED: NASA Gives The ‘Go’ To Start Building Its Deep-Space Mars Rocket)