Commercial Crew Program

73 'Commercial Crew Program' stories March 2020

Enabling safe, reliable and cost-effective crew transportation to and from the International Space Station

NASA‘s Commercial Crew Program is a human spaceflight program created in association with SpaceX and Boeing. It was created in 2011 to allow other companies to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) via their own spacecraft, such as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The program succeeds NASA’s involvement with Russia’s Soyuz program, which the agency previously used to carry astronauts to the ISS.

SpaceX successfully performed the first operational mission as part of the program on November 15, 2020. Called Crew-1, the mission launched four astronauts to the ISS aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Boeing has also been attempting to create its own crewed spacecraft called Starliner; however, various software issues have delayed this project from moving forward as quickly as originally anticipated. Boeing is scheduled to launch another test flight of the spacecraft in March 2021.

Flashback: SpaceX in 2012 vying for NASA commercial crew contract post Space Shuttle

Elon Musk’s 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley on CBS in 2012 has aged remarkably well for SpaceX.

Two things stand out. Falcon 9 and Dragon were only just preparing to begin cargo delivery to the International Space Station — something that’s now routine.

And Elon was dreaming of SpaceX succeeding the Space Shuttle for taking astronauts to space from American soil. Eight years later and that day has nearly arrived.

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