NASA orders first Commercial Crew mission from Boeing

MELBOURNE, Fla. — NASA has placed an order for the first mission that will launch astronauts to the International Space Station in a privately designed and operated spacecraft, possibly in 2017.

As expected, the agency's Commercial Crew Program, led from Kennedy Space Center, made the order from Boeing, which will build its CST-100 capsule in a former shuttle hangar and engine shop at KSC.

A similar order from SpaceX, NASA's other Commercial Crew partner, is expected later this year, and no decision has been made on which company will fly astronauts first.

Nonetheless, Boeing and NASA hailed the milestone as historic — the first contract for a commercial human spaceflight mission — and a sign that flights were on track to begin by late 2017.

"This occasion will go in the books of Boeing's nearly 100 years of aerospace and more than 50 years of space flight history," said John Elbon, vice president and general manager of Boeing's Space Exploration division. "We look forward to ushering in a new era in human space exploration."

NASA last September awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts to fly astronauts, worth up to $4.2 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively.

The contracts guarantee each company at least two flights, and potentially up to six. They are contingent on earning NASA certification that the systems are safe to fly and will follow at least one orbital test flight with a crew.

NASA reiterated a warning that unless Congress fully funds the program's request for $1.2 billion next year, milestones will have to be delayed and a targeted late-2017 first operational launch will slip, extending reliance on Russia to fly astronauts.

While neither company has finished designing or testing its capsule, missions are still put under contract two to three years in advance to accommodate manufacturing and assembly time.

NASA said the Boeing order showed its CST-100 system, will will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, "has reached design maturity appropriate to proceed with assembly, integration and test activities."