NASA Asks Boeing and SpaceX to Restart Developing Space Taxis

It has been reported that NASA has asked Boeing and SpaceX to restart their work to develop space taxis which will be used to carry astronauts to ISS and back to earth. The agency has teamed up with the two private companies in order to resume the project using CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft individually.

The agency last month ordered Boeing and SpaceX to stop their work in the project as a protest was filed by Sierra Nevada Corporation, who lost the bid to build commercial space taxis.

NASA in a statement said that delay in providing transportation services to the ISS crew will put the crew at risk and will highly affect several operations of the ISS. It said that this delay may even result in the US failure to fulfill the commitments it made in its international agreements.

NASA said, "NASA determined that it best serves the US to continue with performance of Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts that will enable safe and reliable travel to and from ISS on American spacecraft and end reliance on Russia for such transportation".

The American Multinational company Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) got the contract of developing space taxis worth $4.2 billion and $2.6 billion receptively.

SpaceX next flight has been pushed to no-earlier than December 9, 2014. SpaceX also plans to send the SpX-5 Dragon aboard one of its Falcon 9 v1.1 rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).

It was found that the flight is expected to carry experiments, crew supplies, cargo and some spare parts. The Hawthorne, a California-based firm has already sent its four Dragon spacecraft to ISS under the $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.

In addition, under this Commercial Resupply Services arrangement, SpaceX is contracted to carry out 12 resupply flights to the space station by 2016.