Good word , individual outer space devotee : SpaceX has just been give five more mission by NASA to ship cargo supply missions to the International Space Station ( ISS ) . The batch , report bySpaceNewsto be worth $ 700 million , brings SpaceX ’s full number of resupply missions until 2018 up to 20 under their Commercial Resupply Services ( CRS ) declaration .
The deal , signal in later December , highlights how successful SpaceX ’s unmanned Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket have been . Dragon became the first private ballistic capsule to dock with the ISS in 2012 , and since then has performed six contract resupply missions . A seventhexplodedafter launching in June 2015 ; the eighth , CRS-8 , is due in April this year .
“ We say resupply flights from our commercial-grade provider via the contract bridge modification cognitive process based on the mission needs to resupply the International Space Station , ” said NASA spokesperson Cheryl Warner , report SpaceNews .
Interestingly , none of SpaceX ’s competitors , of which only Orbital ATK has also sent a spacecraft ( Cygnus ) to the ISS , were awarded any improved contract . This perhaps signifies the confidence NASA has in Elon Musk ’s caller . It ’s not clear if there was a dictation process for these new contracts .
Each of these cargo missions will take essential supply , such as food and resources , in accession to experiments and sure luxury item , to the ISS . Dragon is also the only cargo spacecraft that can currently return to Earth intact , a highly important capability , as it allows experiments and other goods to be brought back to the soil .
SpaceX and Orbital ATK , along with Sierra Nevada ’s Dream Chaser spacecraft , are also contracted under asecond lot of contractsto take cargo to the ISS from 2019 to 2024 , which will keep the place stocked to the final stage of its project operational lifetime .
These moves are helping NASA in its submit end of using private companies to operate in low Earth orbit ; SpaceX and Boeing will also starttransporting astronautsbeginning next year . NASA , for its part , want to focus its own efforts on deep space exploration with its upcoming Orion ballistic capsule and giant Space Launch System ( SLS ) garden rocket .
And it ’s surely an exciting metre for spacefaring , with so many spacecraft in operation ( or soon to be ) . Russia and Japan also regularly send space vehicle to the ISS , while China has its own freestanding manned spaceflight program .
