This extends the amount of time SpaceX will fly Crew Dragon on the Falcon 9 to the Space Station for "at least another four years." On Friday, Sept 18, NASA awarded SpaceX $946 million to fly three more crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS), a "period of performance" that runs through 2030.
"As part of the agency's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract, this change brings the total missions for SpaceX to 17 and helps NASA to maintain access to the space station with two unique commercial crew industry partners," NASA officials said in a statement on Friday (Sept. 18).
The other unique partner is, of course, Boeing and their Starliner. Both SpaceX and Boeing won their contracts in 2014 and, as has been widely reported, Boeing got the bigger contract because they were the experts while SpaceX was a small, startup company. SpaceX was considered high risk while Boeing was the "sure thing." It's a mindset common in the military and aerospace contracting. So far, SpaceX has launched 12 Crew missions plus the one test flight to the ISS to certify the spacecraft in late May of 2020. Boeing has launched only one, which was aborted after the trip back down from the ISS was thought likely to result in loss of the vehicle and crew.
[SpaceX]'s still conducting the 12th, known as Crew-12, and is gearing up for the launch of Crew-13, which is expected to occur in early October. The new contract modification will take SpaceX through Crew-17 and bring the total value of its CCtCap contract to $5.92 billion.
Since Space.com published this, Crew-13's launch has been announced to be Thursday, October 1 at 11:10:06 AM.
SpaceX Dragon meets sunrise on the launch pad for Crew-10 flight March 10, 2025. Image credit: SpaceX
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