Nasa tells Boeing to fly three people for 6 months to ISS
7 April 2018 5:11 PM GMT
Washington DC: NASA has updated its commercial crew contract with Boeing to let the US-based aerospace company fly three people to the International Space Station (ISS) who will stay there for up to six months from an earlier planned two-week trip.
The move is seen as to quickly end the dependency over Russian Soyuz flights to ferry astronauts to the ISS as NASA's contract with Soyuz ends in 2019.
"NASA has updated its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with Boeing, which provides flexibility in its commercial flight tests," the US space agency said on Friday.
Boeing, one of the agency's two commercial crew partners (the other being SpaceX), approached NASA last year and proposed adding a third crew member on its Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the ISS.
This would not be the first time NASA has expanded the scope of test flights.
Next Story
