NASA to add missions to SpaceX commercial crew contract

SpaceX's Crew Dragon approaches the ISS on the Crew-9 mission. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — NASA plans to add more missions to SpaceX’s commercial crew contract, protecting the agency from the possibility that Boeing’s spacecraft is never certified for missions to the International Space Station.

In a May 18 procurement filing, NASA announced its intent to add six post-certification missions, or PCMs, to SpaceX’s commercial crew contract on a sole-source basis. The agency would order up to three of those missions at the time it added them, formally starting preparations for them.

NASA last modified SpaceX’s commercial crew contract in 2022, adding five missions for $1.4 billion. That extension took the contract through the Crew-14 mission. The Crew-12 mission is currently at the ISS.

NASA gave several reasons for adding the missions to SpaceX’s contract, many linked to the fact that SpaceX is the only NASA-certified crew transportation system, or CTS, for going to the ISS.