NASA secures three more flights to SpaceX. Meanwhile, Starlink …
SpaceX has received the order for three more commercial manned flights to the International Space Station (ISS) from NASA, the space agency reported. All this also following the severe delays in the certification of the Boing spacecraft, the Staliner.
NASA originally thought of alternating SpaceX and Boeing missions, but the development delay in the Seattle-based manufacturer's product is literally giving the market away to Elon Musk.
“NASA's assessment is that SpaceX's crew transportation system is the only one certified to meet NASA's safety requirements for crew transportation to the space station,” the agency said in a news release.
Kathy Lueders, NASA Associate Administrator, added: "It is critical to start securing additional flights to the space station now, so we are ready as these missions are necessary to maintain a US presence on the station."
According to the agency, Boeing has encountered a "oxidizer isolation valve problem," discovered prior to a planned unmanned orbital flight test mission to the ISS in August. Unfortunately, the flight, which was supposed to demonstrate the suitability of the spacecraft, did not have the desired outcome, hence the delays. Some analysts believe there will be no Boeing flights until 2023
In September, NASA selected SpaceX to launch the weather satellites as part of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission. The partnership included a $ 152.5 million contract. Meanwhile, SpaceX is starting to develop the lunar lander for NASA to be used in the Artemis project.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has also announced that the disputed Starlink project, that is the network of low-altitude satellites for the worldwide supply of internet service, is continuing. On December 2, a further 48 satellites were launched using a previously used Falcon 9 vector. The project is highly contested because it would increase space congestion, i.e. the number of dangerous objects in Earth orbit, making space flight more dangerous.
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The article NASA secures three more flights to SpaceX. Meanwhile Starlink… comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-nasa-assicura-altri-tre-voli-a-spacex-intanto-starlink/ on Mon, 06 Dec 2021 13:00:19 +0000.