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"Without a viable contingency option at the risk of not being able to maximize the return on its multibillion-dollar investment in the space station," says the GAO report.
The United States n & # They have not had the opportunity to fly into orbit 2011. Since then, NASA has paid for seats aboard Russian spacecraft.
But these seats are only guaranteed in November 2019. And the GAO the Starliner spacecraft from Boeing and SpaceX estimates that Crew Dragon will not be certified for his first missions until December 2019 and January 2020, respectively.
According to the GAO, this schedule leaves little room for maneuver. Additional delays and securing additional seats on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft could take years.
NASA said it was still evaluating several scenarios to ensure continued access to the spat station.
NASA has an ambitious schedule for the commercial crew program on its official web page. SpaceX will conduct its first crew test flight by December of this year, and Boeing will pilot astronauts in November.
But according to the GAO report, NASA officials said that next month, these goals would likely change. SpaceX's fixed price contracts – worth $ 4.2 billion and $ 2.6 billion – in 2014. And, like the vast majority of space vehicle development programs, they've been bogged down with delays since. NASA originally anticipated that the commercial crew program would be operational in 2017.
The commercial crew program was inspired by NASA's commercial replenishment program, which requested SpaceX and Orbital ATK to replenish supplies that have not been re-routed to the space station on behalf of NASA. This program was innovative as it allowed companies to launch the show by designing their own rockets and spacecraft, rather than imposing this burden on NASA.
NASA hopes to build on successful replenishment program with commercial crews SpaceX racing is the first in the private sector to send a human into orbit.
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