Boeing CST 100

Boeing releases images of planned spacecraft

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir cette image]

Boeing is designing CST-100 under an $18 million Commercial Crew Development Space Act Agreement with NASA. The CST-100 would carry a crew of seven and is designed to support the International Space Station and the Bigelow Aerospace Orbital Space Complex.
The CST-100 will be bigger than Apollo but smaller than Orion, and be able to launch on a variety of different rockets, including Atlas, Delta and Falcon, Boeing said. The "100" in CST-100 refers to the 100 kilometers from the ground to low Earth orbit

Get ready to fly Boeing to space

Space Adventures will market seats on Boeing spacecraft, under an agreement the two companies announced Wednesday.
Boeing plans to use its Crew Space Transportation-100 spacecraft to fly crew members to the International Space Station and future commercial low Earth orbit platforms. Space Adventures will sell excess seating capacity to private individuals, companies, non-governmental organizations and U.S. federal agencies other than NASA.
"By combining our talents, we can better offer safe, affordable transportation to commercial spaceflight customers," Brewster Shaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing's Space Exploration division, said in a news release. "If NASA and the international partners continue to accommodate commercial spaceflight participants on ISS, this agreement will be in concert with the NASA administrator's stated intent to promote space commerce in low Earth orbit."
The Crew Space Transportation-100, which can carry seven people, will be able to fly on multiple launch vehicles and is expected to be operational by 2015. Boeing and Space Adventures said they will set a price when full-scale development is under way.
Space Adventures has contracted and flown seven spaceflight participants on eight missions to the International Space Station.
"We are excited about the potential to offer flights on Boeing's spacecraft," company Co-founder and Chairman Eric Anderson said in the release. "With our customer experience and Boeing's heritage in human spaceflight, our goal is not only to benefit the individuals who fly to space, but also to help make the resources of space available to the commercial sector by bringing the value from space back to Earth."

NASA's big announcement: Boeing to build spacecraft at KSC

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir cette image]

TITUSVILLE -- Boeing are expected to announce plans to lease the hangar that housed the space shuttles to build commercial crafts that will bring people and cargo to space.

Gov. Rick Scott's office and President Barack Obama's administration confirmed plans for the Monday announcement.

For the struggling Space Coast, that means new, much-needed jobs.

The announcement is great news for Brevard County residents still looking for work after the end of the space shuttle program, and other business owners affected by the recent layoffs.

"We've had a few loses ourselves so it's kind of hurting with everything," said Pat Robinson, of Cocoa, who said the layoffs have hurt her newspaper delivery business. "We really need it. With the snowbirds coming back, it's helping, but not enough."

The deal is expected to create 140 jobs in the next 18 months, and up to 550 jobs by 2015.

Boeing's reusable space capsules, to be built in the Vehicle Assembly Building, will be able to bring up to seven people into space.

Since the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the United States has not had a way to transport people or cargo to the International Space Station, and has had to rely on Russia to send astronauts to space.

One Brevard County man said while the news is good, he felt the plans should have been in the works years earlier, so there would not have been a gap between one program ending and a new one beginning.

Boeing's announcement is the latest involving commercial activity at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA has has been leasing out its facilities there for some time.