NASA has chosen three different organizations to develop the private space taxi to take astronauts to the Earth's orbit within few years.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), The Boeing Company, and Sierra Nevada Corp are the three companies NASA has chosen to complete the work left by NASA's retired space shuttles to launch the cargo and crews to the International Space Station.
"We're going great guns, we're working very hard, and we hope to have people flying very soon inside the Dragon," said SpaceX's commercial crew project manager Garrett Reisman, on Wednesday, October 17, at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.
Under the NASA's cargo delivery program, SpaceX's Dragon space capsule made two unmanned flights to the International Space Station this year.
Before sending a crew aboard, the team is ensuring all aspects of security to their lives are checked. Seven member crews with a launch abort capability and life support system to be installed. The crew cabin layout and spacesuits shall be designed.
John Mulholland, vice president of commercial programs in Boeing's Space Exploration department, said on Tuesday.
"The real focus here is getting the final design and implementing a system that is safe, reliable and affordable," he said. "It is estimated that the first flight on CST-100 is due in 2016. As Mulholland shared that the preliminary design milestone called integrated systems review has been completed. And the final vehicle plan design will review in April 2014.
Sierra Nevada's participation with its Dream Chaser is different from Dragon and CST-100. It also can carry seven members but has got cone shaped capsules in its winged space plane design. Dream chaser is targeting its first manned launch in 2016 or 2017.
"When I first started looking at building a vehicle for this marketplace, people basically laughed. People kept constantly saying, "It can't be done, it can't be done.' We believe it not only can be done, it is being done. We really are on the verge of moving this whole industry form theory to practice," said Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president of Sierra Nevada's Space Systems.
