NASA Astronauts Prepare For Commercial, pic: NASA Dream Chaser on a Test Flight
NASA Astronauts Prepare For Commercial Flights. Five years after the last NASA astronauts flew from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the International Space Station, a new group is preparing for a trip, this time in a private spacecraft.
On Tuesday, Eric Boe and veteran astronauts Sunita Williams touchscreen use simulators to practice docking spacecraft CST-100 Starliner Boeing Co., with the space station during a training session near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. The simulator, called the Group of the Party-coach, helps prepare astronauts and flight controllers for missions, flight conditions and situations, including rendezvous and docking with the space station.
"This is the next exciting chapter for our country and our space program," Williams said. "It refocuses on what I think is very important to planning for future generations and thinking about their future."
The United States has not seen a manned from Atlantis took off on the final mission of space shuttle launch in 2011. NASA is currently hiring source their performances and paying Russia to transport astronauts to the space station.
The space agency wants to continue the outsourcing of tasks so you can focus on getting astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and Mars and other destinations. NASA is developing the Orion spacecraft and space launch system for those longer journeys and has a contract with Boeing and other US company SpaceX to transport astronauts to the space station.
"If you think of Mars as the summit of Everest (and) low-Earth orbit as a base camp, commercial enterprises that service low Earth orbit are the sherpas who take things back and forth," said Chris Ferguson, director the attached program and COO of the crew and mission for the program Boeing commercial crew. "It allows NASA to go and carry out its mission of exploration."
The cost of a trip on a private spacecraft, which runs USD 58 million will be cheaper than the Russia aorund USD 76 million per trip, according to NASA.
Boeing's role in space exploration began in the 1960s the McDonnell Aircraft, which later merged with McDonnell Douglas before its merger with Boeing-developed the Mercury and Gemini space capsules.
In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing USD 4.2 million to develop the Starliner, its operations launch vehicle and mission and ground systems. The contracts with Boeing and SpaceX, which is developing a crew capsule next generation, total USD 6.8 billion and require at least a test flight with at least one NASA astronaut aboard. Boeing contract includes up to six missions to the space station.
Division of Defense, Space & Security Boeing is building several training devices in St. Louis, including the part in tasks coach and a simulator of large-scale mission astronauts will run through rehearsals, the problems during the launch of the recovery of the spacecraft. The simulator and other training devices will be delivered to the Johnson Space Center in Houston over the next year.
Boeing and SpaceX are targeting test flights to the space station in late 2017.