SpaceX will launch five more astronaut missions to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA by the end of the decade, according to a new contract worth $1.4 billion.
The total contract value is $1,436,438,446, or $2.9 million for each of the five flights recently agreed upon, according to a NASA press release. The agreement was signed under NASA's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract and will allow the space agency to maintain human access to the space station through 2030.
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Crew Dragon is currently the only spacecraft in operation that can carry people to the ISS (NASA's Orion spacecraft will also carry people, but is designed for crewed trips to the Moon as part of the Artemis).
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The number of space missions for which SpaceX has signed contracts using the space capsule has now reached 14, of which four have already been completed. The Crew-5 is scheduled to launch on October 3. The five new missions for which SpaceX and NASA have agreed include Crew-10 through Crew-14. The total value of the NASA/SpaceX partnership now stands at $4.93 billion. The newly signed contract does not preclude additional SpaceX missions to the ISS or other contract modifications, NASA says.
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The Commercial Crew program dates back to 2014, as NASA transitioned from the Space Shuttle program to commercial operators as a means of transporting astronauts to the ISS. So far, only SpaceX has flown astronauts to the orbiting laboratory since 2020. Boeing , NASA's other partner, has struggled to get its CST-100 Starliner certified for human crews. The Starliner program has faced delays and technical issues, but a crewed demonstration mission could eventually take place in February 2023.
