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NASA has announced to award five new missions to Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX). The US Space agency, in a brief on Thursday, mentioned that the missions will help in the crew transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. These five crewed missions by SpaceX to ISS will be launched by the end of the decade. NASA has signed a $1.4 billion (nearly Rs, 11,140 crore) contract with SpaceX for these missions.
Under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, SpaceX has so far dedicated a total of 14 missions to NASA by 2030. In an official announcement about the new deal, NASA has added SpaceX’s Crew-10, Crew-11, Crew-12, Crew-13, and Crew-14 flights.
The cost of contract will cover all necessary expenses including costs for “ground, launch, in-orbit, and return and recovery operations, cargo transportation for each mission, and a lifeboat capability while docked to the International Space Station.”
The CCtCap contract was first awarded to SpaceX in 2014. NASA also shared this contract with another private agency, Boeing, in a public-private partnership.
While Boeing has repeatedly faces issues to complete development of its Starliner space capsule, SpaceX has been winning the bid for NASA. Since 2020, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule has flown five crewed missions for NASA.