Nasa Awards 269 Million In Ccdev2 New Us Capability To Fly Astronauts Developing

Boeing Co. garnered the largest of four NASA Space Act Agreement awards designed to nurture the development of commercially operated astronaut transport systems, landing a deal worth 92.3 million to refine the design of its CST-100 crew capsule, the U.S. space agency announced Monday, April 18, 2011.

The other winners of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) 2 awards are: Blue Origin, 22 million; Sierra Nevada Corp., 80 million; and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), 75 million. The awards are intended to help the companies refine their concepts for transporting astronauts to and from the international space station on a commercial basis, reports "SPACENEWS".

Among the bidders not selected for second round awards are: Alliant Techsystems, Orbital Sciences Corp., United Launch Alliance and United Space Alliance.

Awards will take the form of milestone-based, fixed-price, pay-for-performance NASA investment using Space Act Agreements instead of traditional government contracts. The program will culminate in a Commercial Crew Program in which companies will demonstrate the capability of taking NASA crews to and from the International Space Station.

Origin: ufos-and-aliens.blogspot.com