'Mini shuttle' among NASA crewed spacecraft winners

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

Boeing's 7-seat crewed capsule, the CST-100 (Image: Boeing)

Three companies were today charged with developing crewed spacecraft that will take American astronauts to low-Earth orbit, replacing the NASA space shuttle, which was retired last year. NASA chose SpaceX of Hawthorne, California; Boeing of Chicago, Illinois; and Sierra Nevada Corporation of Louisville, Colorado to develop commercial crewed spacecraft that must be ready to fly within five years.?

A major aim of the commercial crewed spaceflight program is to end NASA outsourcing of human spaceflight and create high-paying jobs across the country, says NASA chief Charles Bolden. Right now, NASA has to buy seats to the International Space Station from its space race arch rival, Russia.

Boeing was granted $460 million by NASA for its crewed development program. The company is a trusted pair of hands with a spaceflight pedigree that dates back to the Apollo moon program. Boeing has developed a solid seven-person crewed capsule design, called the CST-100 (pictured above in an artist's rendering) based on its decades of experience.?

The appointment of SpaceX, a spaceflight neophyte compared to Boeing - and run by Tesla Motors chief and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - has been on the cards ever since the firm successfully launched and docked its Dragon cargo capsule at the space station in May. It was awarded $440 million by NASA. But SpaceX isn't waiting five years to get people into orbit, as its design is well advanced, and has even been pictured with a mock crew aboard.

"SpaceX expects to undertake its first manned flight by 2015," says the company in a press statement. "While Dragon is initially being used to transport cargo to the International Space Station, both Dragon and Falcon 9 were designed from the beginning to carry crew."?

Sierra Nevada Corp was only offered half a development deal by NASA, getting $212.5 million to continue developing its Dream Chaser spacecraft, a reusable spaceplane not unlike a cutdown version of the space shuttle. It's a fascinating design and one NASA seems happy to have as a backup in case the SpaceX or Boeing crewed programs hit problems.?

Like the shuttle, Dream Chaser is designed to land on a runway after a rocket-assisted launch to orbit. It has passed all its tests to date, including a captive carry test (pictured below) in which it was towed by an aircraft to test its aerodynamics.

Dream Chaser: a mini shuttle-esque spaceplane design (Image: Sierra Nevada Corporation)

Sierra Nevada also has another key role in civilian spaceflight: It's developing the hybrid rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic's space tourism craft, which is due to begin powered test flights later this year. That motor burns a type of rubber called hydroxyl-terminated poly-butadiene in an oxidiser of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas.

Among the losers today was Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, a spaceflight startup run by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Its website suggests that the firm will continue to develop a crewed space vehicle for "commercial purposes".

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/22064725/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C0A80Cmini0Espace0Eshuttle0Eamong0Enasa0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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