spacetoday.net: NASA makes CCDev-2 awards

Posted: Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 6:40 AM ET (1040 GMT)
Boeing CST-100 illustration

NASA announced on Monday it was awarding nearly $270 million to four companies to continue work on commercial spacecraft that could be used to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. For the second round of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) program, NASA awarded $22 million to Blue Origin, $92.3 million to Boeing, $80 million to Sierra Nevada Corporation, and $75 million to SpaceX. The funds, provided under Space Act Agreements, will be used by the companies to mature the proposed designs of their crewed spacecraft. They and other companies will later compete for full-scale development contracts for spacecraft that can carry astronauts to low Earth orbit to serve both NASA's needs to access the International Space Station and commercial applications.