NASA said Boeing [BA] successfully concluded the final milestone of its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Space Act Agreement with the agency.
The work and testing completed under the agreement resulted in significant maturation of Boeing’s crew transportation system, including the CST-100 spacecraft and Atlas V rocket. NASA in July approved the Critical Design Review Board milestone for Boeing’s crew transportation system, confirming the detailed designs and plans for test and evaluation form a satisfactory basis to proceed with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and testing.
The CCiCap initiative, the third phase of development, began in August 2012 when NASA announced an agreement with Boeing totaling $460 million to advance the design of the integrated transportation system. NASA added an optional milestone in 2013, lifting the total level of NASA investment in Boeing for CCiCap to $480 million.
This is the culmination of four years of development work by Boeing, beginning when the company partnered with NASA during the first round of agreements to develop commercial crew transportation systems. To get to this point, extensive spacecraft subsystem, systems and integrated vehicle design work was performed, along with extensive component and wind tunnel testing.
Boeing is one of eight companies NASA partnered with during the last four years to develop a human-rated transportation system capable of flying people to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS). NASA’s unique approach encouraged companies to invest their own financial resources in the effort to open up a new industry of private space travel.
NASA recently awarded Commercial Crew Program (CCP) contracts to Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX). Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) recently sued NASA to prevent it from allowing Boeing and SpaceX to continue work while the SNC protests the agency’s decision with the GAO (Defense Daily, Oct. 16).