SpaceX Partners With NASA for $1.4 Billion Contract

NASA has recently announced that they are extending its deal with SpaceX to cover five additional missions.

This contract establishes a long future for NASA and SpaceX as they collaborate to launch astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The new contract extends their partnership to 2030 and makes the contract value an estimated $5 billion for 14 fully operational astronaut missions.

The first NASA and SpaceX deal became official back in 2014 and at this time comprised of six astronaut launches estimated at $2.6 billion.  A crew demonstration mission went off in 2020. This was the first astronaut launch to take off from the US ever since NASA retired its Space Shuttle program. Space X has been handling routine launches since then and has scheduled its fifth operational mission for later this year.

This deal also adds to NASA’s contract extension with SpaceX back in February to add three more flights of the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the space agency has already given its approval in June for more.

“In December 2021, NASA announced the extension of the International Space Station to 2030,” the space agency wrote in a blog post at the time. “With this extension, there is a need for additional crew rotation missions to sustain a safe and sustainable flight cadence throughout the remainder of the space station’s planned operations.”

The future of ISS operations has been questioned lately amid the United States and Russia threatening to cut space station cooperation in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Source: CNN Philippines