Overview
- NASA announced Friday that it has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract modification to buy three additional crewed missions—Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17—bringing SpaceX’s CCtCap total to 17 missions and $5.92 billion through 2030.
- The modification is a firm fixed-price change that covers full mission services including ground processing, Falcon 9 launches, in-orbit operations, return and recovery, cargo carried on each flight, and the Dragon spacecraft serving as a docked lifeboat.
- The award formalizes NASA’s near-term reliance on Crew Dragon to maintain astronaut rotations because Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner remains uncertified for regular crew missions after thruster and return problems on its 2024 flight.
- NASA has also opened media accreditation for SpaceX’s CRS-35 cargo mission, which is targeting a no-earlier-than-October launch to deliver final IROSA solar arrays and science payloads that keep station operations and experiments on schedule.
- The Commercial Crew program was designed to field two independent U.S. providers, and this contract extension buys NASA time to certify Starliner or transition to other vehicles while shaping crew schedules, contractor workloads, and agency planning through the end of the decade.