NASA's plan to send astronauts into space from American soil will likely be delayed by at least three more years after it was revealed that several private partners are facing multiple technical challenges.
The NASA Inspector General's office announced on Thursday, Sept. 1, that the space agency's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) won't be able to push through for at least three more years from its original 2015 target because its contractors, SpaceX and Boeing, are currently dealing with several issues.
The CCP has been delayed because of funding shortfalls before, although its most recent timetable slippages center on technical problems, not least of which are the spacecraft designs presented by NASA's contractors.
NASA Inspector General Paul Martin and his staff said the delays in Boeing's schedules were brought on by vibration issues with its spacecraft design during launch as well as challenges involving the vehicle's mass.
SpaceX, on the other hand, recently changed the design of its spacecraft to be more compatible with offshore landings.
The release of the NASA Inspector General's report comes on the same day SpaceX suffered a blow to its Falcon 9 program with the explosion of one of its reusable rockets during testing.
Commercial Crew Program
Under its $2.6 billion deal with NASA, the California-based aerospace company is tasked with building a Dragon spacecraft that would ferry the agency's astronauts into orbit and then back to Earth. The capsule would be blasted into space on top of a Falcon 9 rocket.
Meanwhile, Boeing was tasked to build a CST-100 "Starliner" spacecraft under its $4.2 billion deal with NASA.
Both the Dragon and Starliner space vehicles are designed to carry a crew of up to seven astronauts. However, this would be narrowed down to four crew members to make room for cargo deliveries during space missions.
SpaceX and Boeing are also considering other possible options to have their spacecraft be used for commercial spaceflights not involving the International Space Station (ISS).
As part of their commercial crew contracts with NASA, both space companies are required to launch two spaceflights as tests, the first of which is an unmanned flight while the second one is to be piloted by two astronauts.
SpaceX intends to use two astronauts from NASA to pilot their crewed test launch, while Boeing plans to have one pilot from NASA and one from the company to helm its flight.
Boeing said its initial launch for the crewed Starliner spacecraft won't happen until 2018.
SpaceX said it can still deliver a crewed test launch of its Dragon spacecraft in 2017. However, this was before the Falcon 9 mishap on Thursday. It is still unclear how the loss of the rocket will affect the company's launch schedule.
Photo: NASA Kennedy | Flickr
